Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution was, undeniably, one of the most profound scientific advances in human history. His discovery of Natural Selection changed everything. It was a turning point in our understanding of who we are, where we come from, and how we got there. It’s impact on science and society cannot be overstated.

But a key hypothesis of Darwin’s about how evolution takes place, the mechanism for biological evolution, was flat-out wrong. His theory, “Pangenesis,” was that variation in individuals was caused by what he called “gemmules” that mixed with one another in the fertilized egg. Genes had not yet been discovered, let alone their critical role as drivers of evolutionary change. Years later it was proven, by further experimentation and research, that Darwin’s gemmules simply did not exist.

I’m not a scientist, but as I understand it, that’s how science works. Every major advance includes within it elements that are incorrect, and it takes further research and application of that advance to correct them. Not only that, but every scientific advance is itself preceded by failure after failure. That’s also how science works.

And that brings me to Bob Avakian. I came across his writing when I was on the staff of the Oleo Strut, the GI antiwar coffeehouse in Killeen, Texas, next to Ft. Hood. This was 1970, when revolutionary upheaval was sweeping the planet. GIs from all walks of life, just back from Vietnam, were reading Malcolm X and Mao Zedong. Organizations were forming and growing around every trend, from Marxism to the revolutionary nationalism of Patrice Lumumba. We knew that capitalism and its most ugly manifestation—imperialism—needed to be swept from the planet. And we were hungry. I gobbled up the Red Papers, a series of in-depth pamphlets that Bob and the Revolutionary Union were producing, and I, along with the literally thousands of revolutionary minded youth of that time, dove right in.

Well, things didn’t pan out as so many of us worked for and expected. The movements we came out of largely disappeared, and the revolutionary wave of the sixties became the famously dubbed “Me Decade” of the seventies. Worst of all, for those of us who dedicated our lives to revolution—even in this biggest of all imperialist countries—and the goal of communism as Mao and the millions of revolutionaries in China were forging, came the crushing blow to Mao’s allies after his death and the rapid reinstatement of capitalism in China along with the slanderous attacks on all that had been accomplished in those three unprecedented decades under Mao’s leadership.

I, along with a lot of others, became disoriented and disheartened, as memories of revolution were driven off the stage. It’s not like nothing was happening, but the beacon of China was no longer there, and the road forward became murky and filled with boulders. Think about it—the two great communist revolutions of the twentieth century, Russia and China, had both turned into their opposites: Russia long ago becoming yet another imperialist power oppressing nations and challenging the U.S. for world domination, and China just a few years after Mao’s death once again a playground for capitalists the world over pursuing cheap labor and eventually yet another imperialist contender. How could you NOT become disoriented and disheartened?

And how could you not conclude, as so many did, that our revolutionary fervor of the sixties was really just youthful idealism, that a revolution would actually make things worse, and the only “realistic” road was to “work within the system” for reforms here and there? How could you not take that road?

The only way you couldn’t was to dig deeper than ever before into the science of Marxism, and that’s exactly what Bob Avakian did. Just as the evolutionary scientists who followed Darwin had done, he explored the unprecedented experiments of the Russian and Chinese revolutions, revolutions that for relatively brief periods freed over a third of humanity but were undermined not just by outside forces (both revolutions were viciously assaulted by imperialist powers led by the U.S.), but by internal weaknesses and outright wrong, even disastrous formulations that continued to plague Marxist thinking and had devastating effects. He dug deep, with a total openness to question everything, and over a period of decades developed a “New Communism,” one aimed at rooting out the errors of the past and forging a new incredibly bright possible future for the planet.

He really did that. And it’s out there for anyone to see for themselves, question, argue, and decide what they intend to do. When I read the new draft Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America for the first time years ago, I was floored and exhilarated. No death penalty. No “The ends justify the means.” A society of vigorous debate and contention of the road forward, a society any thinking, feeling person would long to be a part of.

I’m still disoriented and disheartened. We live in times that are more complicated and terrifying than any in my lifetime, and—yes—the possibility of revolution seems so very remote. But I know, when I look back at my own experience, that things can and do, under the right circumstances, turn on a dime. And I love—yes, love—Bob Avakian and what he has created for humanity and the possibility of forging a whole new world.

David Zeiger
Filmmaker
Director of Sir! No Sir!

When I was in prison, we used to study all this Marxist literature. Lenin and Marx, and it was very difficult to understand. When I got out of prison it all started to make sense to me when I started reading Bob Avakian and the RCP. I was involved in different organizations when I got out of prison. I wanted to be part of something revolutionary, something radical. I got into different things that weren’t really radical and wasn’t speaking to me. I didn’t really get it. I was backing away. But I met the people in the RCP. BA was breaking it down.

I went with Raymond Lotta when he was lecturing around the country. You know that Tour, Set the Record Straight. I listened to that whole thing and he was always quoting from Bob Avakian. I had been swayed by all this stuff about Stalin having killed millions of people and I was struck by the scientific approach to understand what actually happened there. What were they facing and what were the problems in the revolution and what we need to learn from that and what we need to do. This party and this leader is the leadership we need.

BA’s whole approach to everything that’s going on in the world is a scientific approach. I haven’t seen anyone else who could do what he does in that way.

I’d like to say to all those people that’s dismissing Bob Avakian to go fuck yourselves.

Go Read, The New Communism and Conquer the World. Go Read the Constitution and that other one, Phony Communism is Dead… or this new article you brought me (“Something Terrible, Or Something Truly Emancipating…”) and then tell me this is not the leadership we need.

I learned to trust science. It’s like that story, if you don’t have science you can’t get past what’s obvious. In the absence of air and friction if you drop a 100 pound dumbbell and a feather from the top of a building, which is gonna hit the ground first? That’s what you need science for. It’s not obvious and most people can’t see it. They don’t know that they gonna both hit the ground at the same time because without friction everything falls at the same rate!

I have never seen anybody to apply science to understand the world and the problems of humanity and break it down like Bob Avakian.

I have followed with dismay the attacks on Rise Up for Abortion Rights coming from a variety of progressive groups also engaged in the struggle to ensure that people in the United States have free and unrestricted access to reproductive and abortion care.

Like most who will be reading this statement, I am angered and deeply troubled by the recent Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade. As predicted, this decision, formally titled Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, has resulted in a wave of anti-abortion laws being enacted in state after state, some of which amount to outright bans. The damage that is being done by these laws to women who are or might become pregnant is unconscionable. On the one hand, I have no doubt that we will soon see a tremendous negative impact on the health and well-being of those whose access to adequate and appropriate reproductive health care is now being severely curtailed. On the other hand, we have not yet even begun to understand the scale of the emotional and psychological toll that this decision will take from those who are losing the essential health care support that they need and deserve from the communities to which they belong. Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is a cruel and deadly decision that must be undone as quickly as possible.

This is the source of my dismay about the attacks being leveled by abortion rights groups against Rise Up for Abortion Rights. The effect of these attacks is to divide us at a time when we desperately need to be working in concert to achieve a common goal—access to full reproductive health care, including abortion, for all who need it.

We can be sure that those who are rallying to expand what has happened with Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in order to create a nation and a world where abortion is even less accessible than it is in the current moment are not all of one mind. And yet, they are able to set aside their differences in order to pursue their common goal. If we are unable to do the same, then we can be sure that this is a battle we will lose. And our world will be the worse for it.

Ideological and political disagreements should be aired in a principled, substantive way—this is not a time for making false accusations or flinging ad-hominem attacks. Now is the time to work together on various fronts to ensure that those who need abortions or other forms of reproductive health care will be able to get them.

So, I appeal for an end to the vicious and untrue attacks on Rise Up for Abortion Rights and on the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) which is one of its initiators. It is not only unfair but profoundly untrue to portray Rise Up for Abortion Rights as a front organization for the RCP. The RCP is merely one of the groups that has helped Rise Up for Abortion Rights to formulate and proclaim its courageous and passionate message that the decision to strike down Roe v. Wade is both unjust and cruel and that it must be reversed immediately. While other abortion rights groups may choose to take a different path in their advocacy, there is no room for attacking the good and important work that Rise Up for Abortion Rights is doing by getting people into the streets to demand the immediate reversal of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

Along these lines, I appeal to all of us in the movement to guarantee the rights of women to control their own bodies and to make their own decisions about reproductive health care including abortion, to stop the unconscionable attacks that are being made on the RCP and its leader Bob Avakian. These attacks not only divide us at a time when we need to be acting in unity, they are also dangerous. We need only look at the damage done in the 1970s by the U.S. governments’ COINTELPRO program to discredit, divide, neutralize and destroy domestic political organizations that they had deemed subversive to understand the damage that can be done when we attack and discredit those in our own movement using similarly inflammatory and often untrue attacks. Bob Avakian is not a cult leader. Whether or not we agree with him and his revolutionary approach to social change, he is a person of deep principle and powerful intellectual capacity who has fully committed himself to “the emancipation of humanity.” Those who follow him are not puppets. They join the movement because they find Avakian’s description of history and his scientific approach to social and political change to be compelling. Finally, organizations like Rise Up for Abortion Rights and Refuse Fascism, which have significant support from the RCP, are not pyramid schemes designed to raise huge sums of money to support the leadership of the RCP. This accusation is nothing more than an insulting and inflammatory attack against all who have participated in these movements whether or not they have actually been members of the RCP. These attacks are not made on the basis of any real evidence; they are rather used as propaganda whose only purpose is to demonize and to divide. As such, they must stop immediately! Not only can we not afford the damage that some of us are doing to the larger movement through these attacks, we must also recognize how dangerous and—honestly, immoral and unjust—it is to create or even take part in such smear campaigns.

I encourage all of us to engage the RCP and its leader Bob Avakian in a manner that is respectful and open. There will be time for us to debate our differences in approach. But for now, stop the attacks. This type of internecine battling does nothing to advance either our struggle for abortion rights or our ultimate efforts to emancipate humanity and create a better world. In fact, it almost certainly guarantees that the unjust and intolerable situation created by Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization will continue long into our future.

Sincerely,
Frank Wulf

I write not as a communist but as a left-leaning progressive who respects the remarkable sort of social analysis that Bob Avakian has engaged in for decades. He provides multiple factors through social science, reason, history, culture and economics that allow me to actually “see, judge, and act” as a social worker and professor committed to the preferential option for the poor and marginalized in our community. After analyzing the psychological mob attacks by my own “left” on Bob Avakian and the RCP, I condemn the outright falsehoods and ad hominem vitriol that masquerade as truth without any evidence. The RCP is courageous—more courageous than I—in taking it to the streets. I just wonder if there is an unconscious wish by the left to see Bob Avakian go away to cover up their own paltry activism. As a Christian, I am reminded that in the New Testament, Jesus exhorts that a prophet is never accepted in his own land. These attacks only illustrate the point.

Rafael C. Angulo
Clinical Professor, Field Education
Children, Youth & Families
University of Southern California
USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work

I didn’t start learning about revolutionary communism from a principled standpoint, but rather from a personal place. After being caught up in identity politics, criticizing the revcoms for following one leader, disregarding revolutionary ideas for over 5 years as unrealistic, after looking at communists as nothing more than idealistic dreamers, I happened to stumble upon an old recording of a speech by a very young revcom. That speech touched something deeper in me: the anger at this system, the willingness to do good for humanity, and the need to understand HOW to make a real change in society. But it also gave me a powerful drive to find out how this teenager developed a deeper understanding of reality than the majority of people, including myself, what influenced him and brought him to these ideas, and whether I’m missing out on something really important by dismissing them for so long.

Getting to know more revolutionary communists, watching the RNL—Revolution, Nothing Less!—Show over and over again, being fascinated with Sunsara Taylor’s work around the fight for abortion rights—all of this introduced me to a group of the most dedicated and selfless people, real critical thinkers who had the needs and struggles of humanity in mind, and who had a very unusual for me (someone influenced by identity politics, intersectionality, personal perspectives and narratives, etc.) scientific approach to reality. But most importantly, I grew to realize that they are the way they are exactly BECAUSE of their leadership, BECAUSE of Bob Avakian’s leadership.

When the slanderous attacks on the revcoms, BA, and RiseUp4AbortionRights started, it was shocking and demoralizing, but it also revealed something very important and encouraging: if all of those forces, from fascists to liberals and straight-up opportunists, are trying so hard to discredit these organizations and leaders, if people in the so-called “movement” are willing to unite with fascists and parrot their baseless accusations, they clearly see us as powerful forces that are threatening “the way things have always been” within this oppressive system, and in the fight for abortion rights in particular. The unprincipled attempts to minimize the significance of our work is a proof that they actually DO understand the impact we’re already making, and are trying to stop us from bringing in and further transforming the masses of people to emancipate themselves.

So everyone who stands on the side of the people and considers themselves a principled person MUST oppose these attacks against RiseUp4AbortionRights, the revcoms and their revolutionary leader Bob Avakian! Everyone who can’t look away from the atrocities of this system, everyone who refuses to be complicit, and everyone who simply believes in “innocent until proven guilty”: read what the revcoms are really saying directly from the source, find out what BA’s New Communism is really about, look at what RiseUp4AbortionRights is doing and how we’re waging this fight, and if you disagree on something, have the decency to disagree with us based on our actions and political lines, not by spreading lies and unfounded rumors.

I am a documentary filmmaker who has made several films including about Howard Zinn and author Nelson Algren. I taught at several universities. I am not a fan of The Intercept. My view is that Bob Avakian’s POV (Point of View) is a very well-thought-out condemnation of a broken system. I found the red baiting by The Intercept to be a reminder that the liberal wing of the Cold War leftovers are the ones who led us to racism and a disastrous war. Their red baiting is what I call the non-thinking Left. I have no idea what they stand for, they don’t have any original thinking and this is one reason why they so often end up on Fox News. Another reason: they are bought. Let me remind these so-called progressives that we need all voices to fight against this tyrannical system. Instead, they seem to define opposition to neoliberalism as a cult. For having a different thought? Which is possibly coming from people (like Bob) who think beyond the emptiness of these so-called progressives?! They are cranks tied to their belief in a broken system. To me, The Intercept and the other attackers seem to be opportunist cranks.

My journey started out of curiosity & some pretty major soul searching & long before I had any idea who Bob Avakian was. I realized at a point that I had no idea what communism was, or socialism, or capitalism, anarchism, etc. I wanted to know what I might identify with. So I pulled out a dictionary. Having been told my entire life that communism or socialism are bad, & capitalism good, all it took was reading the two definitions to make me skeptical of what I’d been told. I still wasn’t completely convinced of anything so I kept reading & I kept asking questions & more and more I felt like I’d just been being lied to. Or at least being taught by people who were just as misinformed as I had been. My curiosity also had a religious element. So I read the Bible & the Koran. It didn’t take long to realize it was superstitious nonsense. Sexist and racist to boot. Meanwhile I’d been writing letters to a relatively estranged family member, my aunt thousands of miles away. Never once did she push her political beliefs on me. In fact she advocated sternly that I think for myself. In one letter I mentioned my frustration concerning religion & having been raised catholic. She sent me a book, Away With All Gods! by Bob Avakian, & for the first time in a couple years I felt like I wasn’t being lied to or conned. I had something tangible, something that made sense. I subscribed to Revolution & now follow them online.

This movement is not about a cult. It is not about brainwashing. In fact it’s the polar opposite. My son knows where I stand on politics, but I don’t push him one way or another. All I ask of him is to keep asking questions. Keep educating himself.

If you do your research, you’ll learn that Bob’s movement is about as altruistic as one can be. He’s spent his life on this. Not for himself, but for all of us.

We come from a theocratic fascist country and have experienced living under such a regime, with our own flesh, skin, and eyes. We have been able to escape from that hell, to another. As women who have been fighting for the rights of women in Iran and around the world, we strongly condemn these horrific and vicious attacks against Rise Up, Revcoms and Sunsara Taylor and specifically Bob Avakian. In our view these vicious and orchestrated, attacks on Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights that came just one day after ROE was overturned in U.S. These anti-communist slanders tabloids are based on outright fabrications. They did not go against the fascist Supreme Court but, instead attacked Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights and organizations and individuals that have been raising awareness and the need for breaking all the chains of slavery on women. They attacked Sunsara Taylor, one of the initiators of Rise Up, and attacked Bob Avakian, the architect of the New Communism, who is leading people to fight against a fascist future in a country that claims to be the land of democracy and freedom for all in this country and around the world.

The reason for such systematic attacks in our view is that these forces are terrified of the knowledgeable and effective leadership of Bob Avakian who has repeatedly warned against the growth and spread of fascism here in America and the world. They want to close their eyes to this reality, hope it goes away... This is very serious. Despite the efforts of Refuse Fascism, and some others, the American people did not take the threat of fascism, seriously and the events of January 6, did not shake them awake. The overturning of Roe is exactly one of the plans these fascists had in mind.

Not only does Bob Avakian speak the truth about the danger that fascism represents and the future they are trying to impose on humanity, but also he speaks about the possibility of positive and revolutionary change... And we think that it is this, that provokes these so called progressive forces, who fear the possibility of a revolution and that to be a communist revolution.

He writes in “Something Terrible or something emancipating...” which we read in Farsi, he says what we do, and what we do not do today matters a great deal.

I think people need to learn from our experience, and have to be vigilant and not wait till America becomes like Iran's Islamic Republic... And on the one hand wage principled struggle not only against fascism but also for a different possible revolutionary future. When you see how dangerous these attacks are in the face of these two possibilities, you see how criminal these attacks are.

Ever since we got acquainted with Bob Avakian's writings, our attitudes towards life and society have changed and it has influenced our thoughts about humanity and the environment and different possibilities.

BA has always emphasized that we need to be consistently scientific and approach everything with scientific methods, we cannot and should not lie to people, instead, we fight for the truth, and do not believe that the end justifies the means. For us, engaging this knowledge and understanding of society and the environment has changed our lives. This has had a great impact on our lives compared to the past, and has increased our appreciation of science with his leadership. And we are doing our best to defend him all the way, because he points to the possibility of a better world that we are not going to let you take away from us!

Today, it is our duty to utterly condemn these vicious attacks and call on people to do the same. We should not let fascism triumph, and do our best to unite the people of the world to fight to open up a window to another and a liberated world.

The history of America’s crimes is not something that is hidden from the eyes of the people of the world. The democratic and republican governments have worked together all along, united in suppressing and killing freedom fighters and communists almost all around the world. They have always taken political and communist activists to the slaughterhouse under the name of democracy. We have witnessed military aggressions and coups against nationalist and socialist governments, or the McCarthy court and purges of artists and progressive people, under the united plan of both factions within the US government. But the interesting thing is that now these attacks against the progressive, and revolutionary activists are carried out by the so called "Left", who have a long history of appeasement with one of the most fascist governments, such as the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Today, not too surprisingly, we are witnessing that there are countless and vicious attacks by these so called “left and progressives” in sync with Democratic party hacks, and fascists joining together, against the organization Rise Up for Abortion Rights, an organization that has done its best by organizing young people not to leave unanswered, the attacks launched by fascist religious fundamentalists against women's rights; to prevent American society, and the whole world from marching backward and returning to fifty or so years ago. All these accusations against Rise Up for Abortion Rights such as financial corruption, being against LGBTQs, or against natives or people of color... are fake and baseless, and they know it too. But the purpose of all this in order to attack the Revolutionary Communist Party of USA (RCP), that has put all of its power to support Rise Up for Abortion Rights and its great and revolutionary leader, Bob Avakian.

It is very clear to everyone that one of the three initiators and founders of Rise Up, is Sunsara Taylor, who is a leading revcom and one of the followers of Bob Avakian, who constantly exposes the so-called liberal face of this system in demonstrations against the ban on abortion rights, with fiery speeches as well as exposing the fascistic function of this imperialist system, while openly expressing her views of the need for revolution, a communist revolution and that communist revolution needs to be led by the New Communism brought forward by Bob Avakian.

For all women in the world, especially for women like me who come from a religious fundamentalist society, the fight for women's rights is very crucial. A matter that was NOT given sufficient significance in the late ’70s and early ’80s when every struggle and conflict was postponed to concentrate on the conflict between the workers and the capitalists, and the contradiction nationalism against imperialism... as important as they were. Other social contradictions were looked at as totally secondary, or irrelevant. This had a significant effect in stabilizing the reactionary regime and contributed to the defeat of the revolution, a price paid by millions.

In summations of past struggles and revolutions Bob Avakian puts forward a new synthesis of communism, amongst its many significant aspects is his view of the oppression of women cannot and should not be postponed until after the revolution. Rather, the fight against patriarchy needs to be grasped firmly and fought against today. Bob Avakian’s analysis that the oppression of women is one of the most significant fault lines of class society in moving toward a society without oppression and exploitation. And it is based on this understanding that the RCP, with all its energy takes part in the women’s movement including the fight against ill-legalization of abortion.

Bob Avakian's summary of the past of the communist movement was very inspiring for us communist women who were fighting against patriarchy and for our rights. As an ex-political prisoner I have to mention that defending political prisoners is very close my heart. Today, the only organization in America that defends the political prisoners of Iran and fights to free them all, is RCP. In addition, I must say that I, as a communist woman who spent 8 years of my life in the prisons of the Islamic Republic of Iran will not turn away from any effort to free all political prisoners in Iran.

With its internationalist approach, RCP supports every righteous struggle in the world. Unfortunately, many so called progressive leftists in America side with the Islamic Republic of Iran and defend it under the banner of “anti-imperialist struggle against American imperialism”. While the RCP has taken a position against both outmodeds of the world, the Islamic fundamentalism of Iran and US imperialism, both are reactionaries and outdated. Siding with any of these outmodeds and that siding with any if them leads to the strengthening of both of them.

RCP and its great leader have never turned their backs against the people of Iran and their struggles. They point out a real solution for people of Iran as well as here in America, to make revolution, ’til all reactionary forces are dumped where they belong, in the dumpster of history’s depository, while passionately putting forward a communist alternative.

In the terrible and dark conditions of the eighties, when the Iranian revolution was defeated and my best comrades were executed or imprisoned, the internationalist revolutionary movement, which RCP was very influential in was able to scientifically analyze the causes of the defeat of revolutions in general, and the defeat of socialist governments, in specifically. In those hard conditions, all forces had lost their compass. For me and my other comrades, it was very promising and a light in the darkness to receive these summations, which was able to increase our ability to resist and stand up to the regime's brutal attacks, both physically and in the form of ideological attacks. The contribution of RCP and Bob Avakian cannot be even touched upon in these few lines, but I, as one of the communists who is dedicating herself to a world without exploitation and oppression, a classless world of communism, will always appreciate the contribution by Bob Avakian in wrestling with the most difficult contradictions of the revolution. In these difficult times particularly in the current crazy situation where all kinds of revisionist, reformist, social democratic, parliamentarians, and other post-modernists and identity politics and views are suffocating the air, I cherish the principled revolutionary approach of RCP and particularly Bob Avakian.

Bob Avakian cult leader? What defines a cult? Bob Avakian’s entire mission is to speak up in defense of the oppressed. For those who are shouting “cult,” why don't you look up the definition of what a cult actually is—review the characteristics—and then if you are in error retract your cult charge. Or, maintain this accusation and go down the road (or hole) of another “Big Lie.” What type of societal standards does this promote? Who would treat fellow human beings with such unfairness?  

I don’t know Bob Avakian. I’ve never met him. But from an objective view, what I have seen and heard, through his writings and lectures, is Bob Avakian is an analytical thinker who looks at all of society with a sure-fire reading. With an accurate interpretation, he captures reality with foresight. My first awareness and knowledge of Bob Avakian was through Refuse Fascism protesting the illegitimate election and inauguration of Donald Trump. We challenged the discriminatory Muslim Ban and the cruel separation of children and babies from their mothers at the border, and we called for massive resistance to drive the Trump/Pence regime out. The current issue at the forefront of Avakian's involvement is for a woman's right to choose. There is nothing in such a demand that could rationally create confusion.

There is a call to justice for Bob Avakian, who has been a dedicated resister of oppression—that is what I see. “Big Lies”—haven’t we heard and seen enough of Trump, Alex Jones and the like with their barrage of lies and the impact and damage caused, with all the chaos and confusion undermining truth, and now “cult” to attack and denigrate Bob Avakian? Pyramid scheme? Again we need the dictionary! It is quite the norm for organizations to receive donations to support their work—why single out Bob Avakian and the RCP? This is just another slanderous accusation. We cannot allow falsehoods and “Big Lies” to run rampant and go unchallenged.

When the stories came out that RiseUp4AbortionRights was a front run pyramid scheme to finance the Revolutionary Communist Party USA and that its members were cultishly devoted to a single old white man it confirmed my hunch that the Democrats were getting desperate and willing to not only hide the truth, but willing to attack the truth by wrapping it up so tight with their own stench of hypocrisy that the common person would be hard driven to unpack the truth out of it all. And the Republicans, of course, happily deferred to the Dems this dirty work. It plays right into their trigger happy fascist hands.

It made me think of the day that CERN Scientists made a huge public event at announcing the “discovery” of the Higgs boson, confirming the Higgs field with everyone giving Higgs a standing ovation that was broadcast around the world.

What if that event had shot across the news wires as “CERN businesses propagandize the God Particle with their blind faith standing ovation to Peter Higgs, their cult leader in order to promote themselves most likely for more funding. CERN costs many billions of dollars. These doddering old men are wasting our time, money, and good orderly direction into the future and should be ignored and refused any affiliation.” This is exactly how stupid the fake journalists sound to me in what they are doing to the RiseUp4AbortionRights movement.

OK, there’s the Creation Museum; why don’t the politicians pooh pooh that as a product of a cult money making pyramid scheme? That would be the truth. They can’t because this society here in the USA truly IS a CULTish society, and the ruling class wants it to stay and get more that way.

I just re-viewed “F.T.A.”, the 1972 movie about the army draftees opposing the Vietnam War and the show that went overseas to help them. I’m slightly younger than Fonda and Sutherland, so I remember clearly. I was politically inactive but antiwar at that time. Today, Bob Avakian has succeeded at keeping that spirit alive continuously up through to today in our present world of military techno-killing and where we are glued to our phones and cable TVs inside our homes. He has been successful at getting more people to retake the streets while most of us are slowly giving up the streets by staying at home.

I became politically active against Bush/Cheney in 2001 following 911. I’ve known about the RCP for about 15 years and enjoy their dedication to scientific truth via political science. Science is my love and belief. I enjoy keeping up with the RCP news and activities. It offers hope and gives a sense of not being so alone in my desire to see society change for the better. What in many people is a dream of a world free of inequalities can be understood scientifically as a real possibility within the scope of complete revolution, an interim socialist government, and finally a true, real, and new communism. First, people must learn that communism is the light at the end of the tunnel, not a train headlight. It’s that simple a start. Then look into it and see what you come up with and what else you can learn and do with others regarding communism, which today is the new communism in its present state of development.

The fact that our society is becoming more and more cultish probably does not strike many people as news. It’s pretty clear everywhere. For the last 100 years the psychology of advertising (propagandizing) has been honed to a fine art. Today we do not even know who is paying for the opportunity to approach each of us online to dumb us down trying to make us placid and lethargic on the important challenges, and emotionally dependent and extreme on the class divisive topics.

The RCP, though, has affiliated with many movements over the years. One of my favorites was when the Matrix movie first came out and we flierd in front of movie theaters with cool material suggesting it was time to “take the red pill” and “drive out the Bush Regime.” What the RCP is doing today is no different than back then.

The Revolutionary Communist Party is a politically scientific movement towards a society that does not allow any community organization or individual to take unfair advantage of one group of people over any other group of people and operates upon laws that put that into effect. And the RCP does a pretty good job dispelling all theories that we could ever get there by incremental changes in the present system. I mean, with all our scientific advancement over the last 50 years, look at where we not only still are, look at where we are going!

Stop and spend a little time looking into the new communism of the RCP and by all means, get back with supporting Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights. Staying on the streets is a critical part of keeping representation of people who otherwise would not get a voice.

I have been following the writings and speeches of Bob Avakian for more than 4 decades now, yes, from the time that I was very young man.

During the last 4 decades whatever I have heard and learned from BA has been nothing but standing with the oppressed and working men and women all over the world. I think it is his internationalism that makes some chauvinists incensed. Bob Avakian is not only defending the masses of the world but feels responsibility to lead people out of this mess and towards a better future.

As I said during 4 decades, what I have heard from him is " Revolution Nothing Less" for a communist World!

I have to say these kind of attacks on BA and Sunsara Taylor and Revcoms, especially after they have been standing with women and fighting for their right for abortion, is more than just a reactionary attack on these individuals and organizations. This is also an attack for anyone who fights for women's rights, anywhere in the world.

We must stand firm and keep our heads up and proudly and fully support them and raise our voices and defend them against these anti-communist Jihadist rants, from these so called "lefts" and so called "Progressives" who sound more like Christian fundamentalists and fascists.

Viva BA!
Viva Sunsara Taylor!
Viva revcoms!
Viva Rise Up!

Growing up, I hated, HATED, the war in Vietnam and despised what “we” did to Vietnam and the Vietnamese people (I have since come to understand that I am not part of that “we”). I HATED that women could be called “Ho’s and Bitches” and not have control over their own bodies. I hated “red-lining” and all the open and subtle racism built into the world around me.

But, I also loved, LOVED, the uprisings in 1965 and 1968 in the U.S., civil rights and women’s rights victories, the anti-colonial struggles around the world, and the Vietnamese kicking the U.S.’s butt!! These challenges to the status quo started to open my eyes. I had read about imperialism and had dabbled with the Redbook, but I did not really understand what was going on in the world, what were the underpinnings of how the world worked, and how to change it for the better. I was yearning to figure out a way to stop all the ugliness and oppression around the world and tried different methods from NY PIRG to voting to going to a national socialist convention in Chicago. None of these really answered my questions. As I dug into and researched different issues, it became apparent to me that the answers provided by the mainstream and liberal/radical left were hollow. It became clear to me that the solution was a total revolution, a complete revamping of society and the world. But how does one do that?

I then started reading the Revolutionary Worker newspaper. I found it a bit dogmatic (this has since changed for the better), but it had an approach I had not seen before: revolutionary internationalism and dialectical materialism. Then, the death of Mao occurred along with the arrest of the “Gang of Four.” I was quite confused about all of this. I began to read essays by Bob Avakian. His many sidedness and approach gave me reason to more thoroughly dig into what is capitalism and imperialism, and what is Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. And, BA’s method started to give me the tools to figure out for myself what the truth is and follow it wherever it led me regardless of my pre-conceived prejudices. His method and approach to the world also gave me the ability to be part of fighting for truly emancipating all of humanity while fighting against all this “cancel culture,” “me-firstism,” and identity politics. And the more I read and re-read BA, the better I am at being able to fight hard for a path that will make a better world.

As for the latest attacks: A lot of people like to ignore, push aside, or outright attack Bob Avakian and the Revcoms. I get that—it means BA is doing something right, especially given the people and groups that have recently been attacking him from petty so-called progressives to outright reactionaries.

But the big question is why? And why are so many people not with BA? For many people I know, they don’t really want change, they just want their little area of the world to be nicer or more compatible with their own interests. Dealing with Bob Avakian means you have to really confront the way the world actually is. And, if you do that, this begets the question of what are you going to do about it if you have half a shred of humanity.

There are millions of people who do not know about Bob Avakian who should know about him. He is the gold standard by which everything else should be compared with and judged by when dealing with current philosophical, epistemological, economic, and political questions. This is a bold statement. But it is accurate and true. This is because he is the most scientific and methodical evaluator of society today.

I challenge anyone, anywhere on the planet, to demonstrate that BA’s analyses are not both prescient and correct. And, I say this in a comradely way. Please, please come forward if you have ideas and analyses that are different and reflect both the way the world is and how we can fundamentally change it to move all of humanity forward. I challenge anyone to do this. Not because we need to have petty disagreements, but because we want to figure out the best ways to end the oppression and exploitation of most of humanity. What exists today is truly horrifying, and becoming worse. Bob Avakian has a blueprint for how to change all this: Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America. How uplifting and liberating!

I have always found it “intriguing” that people attack BA and the Revcoms around the question of leadership, as if they don’t follow one form of leadership or another, whether it be a particular party or group, person or candidate (or conglomerate thereof), or a particular world outlook. They are either lying to themselves, or they are completely out of touch with how they make day to day decisions. The question is not whether or not we need leadership, the question is what type of leadership.

Different leftists, do-gooders, radicals, socialists, and self-appointed revolutionaries talk about and acknowledge the contributions that Karl Marx and Frederick Engels made around their great breakthroughs to understanding capitalism and how this is central to the world we live in. Many of these people call themselves Marxists. But all too often people throw around the term Marxism or capitalism in a generalized way and have “time stamped” what capitalism is and do not truly understand the depth of what Karl Marx and Frederick Engels are saying. People will say they are against the evils of capitalism, but most of them have no idea of what capitalism is and how it functions independent of what they think. Ask them for a definition of capitalism. Ask them what the “4 Alls” are that Marx wrote about, pivotal points to understanding class struggle and how to get to a classless society, and they do not know. These people are “superficial” Marxists and have not spent the hard work it takes to truly becoming and being a revolutionary.  That is what sets the Revcoms apart, and why they are the vanguard.

As the saying goes, “The point is not to just study the world, the point is to change it.” This then raises the question of what truly is change? For many people, change merely means what needs to change to benefit themselves, or a select grouping of people, in one form or another, even if they think they are being altruistic. And all their efforts will mean nothing in the final analysis because they are not going after the root causes of why the world is the way it is. For true change, there must be an internationalist outlook of “the whole world comes first,” a bedrock orientation of Bob Avakian. 

Ask most self-appointed revolutionaries, “what is a revolution?” You will get almost as many answers as the number of people you ask. What REALLY IS a Revolution? Let alone what REALLY IS a socialist revolution?

What I have learned and appreciate from Bob Avakian and others who support and work with him, and consciously follow him, is to truly have a revolution this means completely dismantling the economic and political system we live under along with all the ideological trappings that go with it. 

For teaching me this, I am grateful to BA and the Revcoms. This is why I donated a week’s salary to the Fund Drive and this is why I am consciously part of the journey to truly emancipate all of society.

As BA wrote:

“Let's go on a crucial journey together—full of unity against oppression and lively struggle about the source of the problem and the solution. Pursue your own convictions—that the outrages that move you are intolerable—to their logical conclusion, and be determined not to stop until those outrages have been eliminated. And if this, as well as learning about other outrages, and ideas about how this all fits together and flows from a common source—and how it could all be ended, and something much better brought into being—leads in the direction of seeing not only the need for bold and determined resistance, but also the need for revolution and ultimately communism, then don't turn away from that because it moves you beyond your comfort zone, challenges what had been your cherished beliefs, or because of prejudices and slanders. Instead, actively seek to learn more about this revolution and its goal of communism and to determine whether it is in fact the necessary, and possible, solution. And then act accordingly.”

There’s nothing new in United States history about the slanderous demonization of those who step up and fight to make a better world from the bottom up. From at least the Molly Maguires (1870s) and the Haymarket Martyrs (1880s) through the rise of the House Un-American Activities in the late 1930s, the 1950s McCarthy terror, and the FBI’s notorious COINTELPRO war on Black and New Left leaders during the 1960s and 1970s to Donald Trump’s description of George Floyd protesters as “radical Left terrorists who want to destroy our country,” those who lead the struggle for progress have long been subject to smears that encourage and justify repression.

Libelous Red Baiting and “Cult”-Charging

Still, it’s bracing and a little bizarre in 2022 to see an anti-Communist jihad launched from “the left” (see below) against an organization that has been fighting to defend something commonly identified with mainstream liberalism: the right to an abortion.

I am referring to recent attacks directed at Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights (RU4AR), the organization that has led the struggle against the Christian Fascist war on women’s right to control their own reproductive lives. Each of the charges made against the organization is false and libelous, including preposterous and baseless claims of financial corruption, anti-transgenderism, anti-gayness, indifference to the need for abortion services, and indifference to the plight of people caught up in the horror of prostitution (what some liberal progressives offensively call “sex work”).

None of the false claims made against RU4AR is more provocative and chilling than the claim that it is nothing more than a “front group” for the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), which is in turn described as “a cult” under the spell of Bob Avakian.

The “evidence” for this accusation consists of the facts that one of the group’s three co-founders, Sunsara Taylor, is an open RCP leader and Avakian follower, and that RCP members (“revcoms”) have been visible and vocal at RU4AR rallies.

The “communist front” claim is a ridiculous insult to Taylor, who makes no effort to hide her politics. It is an even bigger affront to RU4AR’s other two esteemed feminist founders, neither of whom are revolutionary communists and both of whom are capable of picking movement allies with eyes open: the legendary founder of Choices Women’s Medical Center Merle Hoffman and Lori Sokol, the executive director of Women’s e-News.

The red and cult-baiting is unjustly offensive also to the tens of thousands of concerned and active citizens who have taken up RU4AR’s calls for mass action and civil disobedience because the calls match their sense of what is required in the battle against the female enslavement that is forced motherhood.

Is it really surprising and problematic that revcoms have followed Taylor into RU4AR? Consistent with Avakian’s writing and speaking over decades, the RCP has long and correctly placed the struggle against patriarchy (along with the struggles against white supremacy and against Christian fundamentalism) at the center of its fight for socialist revolution. It would be bizarre if revcoms had not rightly taken up RU4AR’s fight for abortion rights.

The “cult” charge is rooted in a slanderous identification of leadership with slavish devotion to a single individual. Do RU4AR’s “left” haters think JPMorgan Chase is a “Jamie Dimon cult?”? Do they honestly believe that RCP members would continue to follow Avakian if he became a Christian nationalist, a Marine Le Pen supporter, a climate denier, and/or a Rastafarian who claims that covid vaccines are “the work of the devil”? (One can agree or disagree with Avakian’s politics and theories, but anyone who has had any serious contact with the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist RCP knows that the “cult” charge is ridiculous and contrary to Avakian’s consistent call for people to study, organize, and unite broadly across sectarian and ideological lines.)

What “Socialist Feminists” and Other “Grassroots Repros” Did the Day After Roe Fell

Perhaps the most curious and telling thing about the attack is that it has come initially and mainly from “the left.” The lead red-baiting anti-communist attackers have been the liberal and progressive journals Jezebel and The Intercept, and 23 “grassroots repro” groups led by the self-described “intersectional socialist-feminist collective” New York City for Abortion Rights (NYC4AR).

Here’s something to reflect upon: one day after the US Supreme Court tore up women’s constitutional right to an abortion in the Dobbs v. Jackson ruling, NYC4AR didn’t produce and disseminate a critique of the decision and a call for mass resistance. No, it put up and spread an elaborate Instagram post making all the ridiculous and baseless charges mentioned above. It called for the shutting down of RU4AR, the one group that has called people into the streets to demand legal abortion nationwide for the last eight months, going back to when the Supreme Court first heard oral arguments on Dobbs.

That’s how NYC“4AR” responded to the undoing of Roe v. Wade.

For real.

Here are the names of the groups that signed NYC“4AR”’s hate post, issued one day after Dobbs: Reproductive Justice Collective; United Against Racism & Fascism (NYC); Fund Abortion Not Police; Feminist Collages (NYC); Shout Your Abortion; Washington Square Park Mutual Aid; Buckle Bunnies (Texas); Mujeres en Resistencia (NY/NJ); Abortion Access Front; Reproductive Freedom Fund (NH); The Jane Fund (Massachusetts); Reproductive Rights Coalition (Charlotte, NC); Tigers for Choice (Texas); Chicago Abortion Fund; National Institute for Reproductive Health Action Fund; SWOP Brooklyn; Brooklyn People’s March; Forward Midwifery; SMAbortionActivists; New Mexico Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice; Women’s Information Network of NYC (WIN-NYC); Chicago Democratic Socialists of America Socialist Feminist Working Group.

Think about that: Roe is reversed and one day later, 23 “grassroot repro” groups (many backed by corporate-bankrolled corporations and financial institutions), including a part of the Chicago DSA chapter, are seen with their names affixed to a COINTELPRO-like assault on the group that led a six-month nationwide protest campaign under the slogan “Post-Roe, Hell No!”- an assault issued by a group that actually calls itself a “socialist-feminist collective.”

What did you do the day after Roe fell, dear reader? RU4AR members led rallies outside the Court chanting “This decision must not stand, legal abortion across the land!” Literally from the minute the ruling came down, they called for its reversal and for the Biden administration and Congress to use their powers to make abortion legal and available in every state in the country.

How “communist cult” of them!

The Instagram attack, trolling RU4AR across the Internet (through the dark magic of hashtags) like white on rice, is surely one of the most sordid episodes in the history of what passes for “the left” in the 21^st Century USA. It’s called doing the work of the right from “the portside.”

The fascist right appreciated the hit jobs. RU4AR’s “left” haters’ smear campaign was picked up by the neo-Nazi Daily Caller and the fascist police state zine Law Enforcement Today.

Other takers have included the sensationalist pop-cultural Daily Beast and the masculinist “guy culture” zine MEL Magazine, which proudly includes a bold section on “Dicks.”

Undeterred by alliance with the far right, the “left” red-baiting and “cult”-shaming of RU4AR has more recently been disseminated by the “socialist Twitch streamer” and “progressive Democrat” Hasan Piker, who recently repeated the vicious and moronic claim that RU4AR is an “anti-trans hate group.”

How COINTELPRO: fomenting progressive division and ratting out revolutionaries and radicals, setting them up for repression from fascists within and beyond the state.

On the Eve of Fascist Consolidation

This attack is especially reckless and insidious because of the historical moment in which it is taking place. As RU4AR has insisted throughout, the Dobbs decision is a leading judicial battering ram in a many-sided fascist offensive meant to eviscerate what’s left of bourgeois democracy and rule of law in the U.S. The “left” smear campaign against RU4AR comes amidst the most egregious systemic attack on US democracy since the Civil War. This is unprecedently perilous moment, with the liberal and moderate center unable to hold. Republifascists are marching forward across “red” America and preparing to seize triple-branch national power over the next two and a half years. The country is saturated with assault rifles and other lethal firearms, dangerously concentrated in the hands of a determined and paranoid right-wing. Attacks like the ones recently launched on RU4AR play into the repressive hand of the state and the right. They put lives at risk

This is how liberal and “left” outlets, groups, and individuals like “socialist-feminist” NYC4AR, the 23 “repro” groups, the Chicago DSA Socialist Feminist Working Group, Jezebel, the Intercept, and Hasan Piker spend their energies in this moment? Seriously?

Ten Explanations

Which brings me to the money question: WHY? What on Earth would compel liberal and “left” writers and “activists” to launch an anti-Communist jihad against an organization that has been fighting fiercely to defend and expand abortion rights?

There are ten basic reasons:

+1. Ideological, organizational, financial, and political commitment to insider strategies of elite lobbying and major party electioneering: the very same failed, top-down approaches that RU4AR rightly denounces as insufficient and inadequate, indeed as complicity. Beneath this commitment lay longstanding professional and liberal class fears and distrust of the masses and the financial umbilical cord linking many “repro” and “choice” NGOs to corporate-captive foundations that are tied into the neoliberal corporate and imperialist Democratic Party – that is, to the vaguely liberal wing of the ruling class, which has no interest in RU4AR’s mission of sparking masses to march to disrupt business (rule) as usual in the streets and public squares. As a leading Chicago RU4AR activist tells me, “Our ‘left’ attackers’ commitment to a status quo that is going over to counter-revolution” means “going after those who would dare to stand up to the status quo (Rise Up) and even call for its overthrow (Revcoms).”

+2. Fury at being called out for their advance surrender to the reversal of Roe v. Wade. As the Chicago activist told me last week: “Their thesis was ‘We can’t organize to stop SCOTUS from doing whatever it’s going to do, we can only rely on the Democrats.’ Rise Up had a very different narrative:

‘We won abortion rights by mass struggle, that’s what will shake the powers-that-be into stepping back from their woman-hating assault. Raise questions about the legitimacy of their institutions!’ Rise Up PUT THE LIE to the mainstream choice and ‘repro’ groups’ whole narrative. It was on the ground organizing tens of thousands to try to save Roe from the start, beginning last January.”

Indeed. Had the “left” pro-choice groups joined RU4AR, they might well have helped rescue Roe or at least significantly limited the damage.

+3. Jealousy. RU4AR has challenged the “choice” establishment’s appeasement with great talent and élan. Thanks in no small part to the skills and experience of its revcom-affiliated volunteers, RU4AR knew and knows how to organize and stage powerful, attention-grabbing actions and rallies. It demonstrated these abilities in militant fashion, shaming by both word and deed those “abortion activists” who chose submission, passivity, and cynical electoral politics and fundraising over serious resistance in the half-year leading up to Roe’s reversal.

+4. Turf protection: fear of losing membership and contribution ground to a new, militant and attention-grabbing organization that rightly undertook provocative direct actions along with dedicated popular recruitment to mobilize mass popular opposition to the emergence of the post-Roe era now upon us.

+5. Click-bait: salacious conspiracy-mongering attracts eyeballs and subscribers. Charging RU4AR with “hijacking” a legitimate liberal cause in service to a mysterious “communist cult” is a bright shiny object, irresistible to some writers and editors even or especially at some “left” outlets.

+6. Historical and experiential ignorance. Perhaps this is too kind (it probably is), but the McCarthy era and COINTELPRO are distant memories for most people younger than 70.  It strikes me as possible that some if not many of RU4AR’s haters have little to no idea that they are walking in some very ugly historical grooves by engaging in an anti-communist witch hunt. Not to overdo the “forgive them for they know not what they do” line, but they have likely also had relatively little if any exposure to serious Marxist-Leninist thinkers and activists like Avakian, Taylor, and the revcoms, something that makes them prone to paranoid-style narratives on “communists under your bed.”

+7. Failure to grasp the dire historical moment. The “grassroots abortion activists” and “democratic socialists” attacking RU4AR do not understand and in some cases deprecate RU4AR and the RCP’s observation that we are now facing a fascist section of the ruling class that is growing and poised to come back into power with literal vengeance. This fascism-denial and indifference is part of why they see no problem in recklessly joining the right (e.g., the Daily Caller and Law Enforcement Times) in denouncing communists within the abortion rights movement.

+8. Fake-“socialist” inability to grasp the necessity of revolution. RCPers within and outside RU4AR consistently and (in this writer’s carefully considered opinion) rightly call out “democratic socialists’” pitifully tame commitment to incremental and economistic reformism – and their refusal to break with the underlying system and parties of capitalism-imperialism. It’s questionable whether RU4AR’s “socialist” haters even grasp the critique. As the aforementioned Rise Up activist tells me: “DSA is so settled into the imperialist U.S. status quo and so mired in the ‘fight for more’ of the spoils of empire that they can’t see any need for let alone possibility of an actual revolution. (I’m not sure they care or know of let alone understand RCP’s and Avakian’s critique of social democracy.) They’re too busy being ‘realistic’ and that’s their stance toward the loss of Roe: they’re being ‘realistic’ and Rise Up is just ‘showboating,’ they think. And now their non- or anti-revolutionary position has gone over to active counter-revolution.”

+9. Sleepy “woke” uber-identitarianism: the utterly false claim that RU4AR is anti-transgender is intimately related to the preposterous notion that one “excludes” transgender people (who account for a tiny percentage of pregnancies) when one makes the obviously correct observation that the Christian fascist war on abortion rights is fundamentally a patriarchal campaign to deepen the oppression and control of women and girls. It’s another example of “oppression Olympics,” a noxious spin on bourgeois identity politics claiming that “trans men are more oppressed than women and girls so that’s who we have to center our politics on.”

+10. Desire to appropriate RU4AR’s tactics and absorb them into the dismal Dems’ top-down insider strategy. Some mainstream “choice” forces are now, post-Roe, deploying the green bandana, the Latin American abortion rights symbol popularized in the USA by RU4AR. They are also getting arrested outside the Supreme Court, as did RU4AR activists before the Dobbs decision. The mainstream trick here is to take these effective tactics without admitting that they were pioneered by a militant organization that included – what horror! – communist activists and a communist co-founder (Sunsara Taylor). The establishment NGO groups now wearing green and engaging in civil disobedience are trying to deceptively attach their approach of “there’s nothing we can do, vote blue no matter who” to a symbol of real resistance. They are trying to cover up the capitulation of the Democratic Party to this fascist assault on the basic civil and human rights of women and girls.

Such is the grotesque and tortured “logic” behind the sorry spectacle of the shameful “left” neo-McCarthyite attack on the nation’s leading abortion rights organization in the wake of the Dobbs decision – an organization that would not have been formed had the country’s reigning Democratic Party-affiliated “choice” groups not chosen to surrender in advance – please see Karen Attiah’s remarkable Washington Post editorial “ ‘The Art of Losing the Abortion War,’ for Our Dear American Leaders” – to the end of Roe v. Wade.

Paul Street’s latest book is This Happened Here: Amerikaners, Neoliberals, and the Trumping of America (London: Routledge, 2022).

The attacks on Bob Avakian, Sunsara Taylor, the revcoms, and Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights are dangerous and extremely damaging to the fight against fascism and any movement for justice. They must be opposed, and good people who are falling into this kind of red-baiting cancel culture need to knock it off!

Since February, I took on a leadership role in Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights, largely because of the analysis BA had done on the role of women in society and the importance of the fight for abortion in the overall emancipation of women. I did this while being a “friend” of the revcoms but not calling myself a revcom or a follower of BA, even though I have been very influenced by his work.

For my part, these attacks have clarified the qualitative difference between BA’s leadership and the leadership of these “grassroots” organizations who first launched these attacks. It has clarified for me the difference between reform and revolution, between wanting to find a place within this system and wanting to overthrow the system to put a far better system into place.

BA’s emphasis on a method and principles that are in line with the world you are trying to bring into being, with a thoroughly scientific epistemology that puts critical thinking and truth—which stands up to questioning and evidence and corresponds to reality—as central to making revolution, is completely counter to the lies and petty jockeying for “movement space” represented by these attacks.

Instead of inspiring people to bring the fight for abortion rights to a higher and more determined level, these attacks led people whose hearts were in the right place to give up on the struggle in the streets for legal abortion. It also led many to behave in atrocious ways, with no accountability to the truth or common decency. Maybe these people don’t know what they are doing by launching and joining these attacks. Maybe they don’t know how much they are aiding and abetting the fascists and the rulers of this horrible system. Maybe they don’t understand how damaging anti-communism is to progressive movements, or maybe they do know and don’t care and are only out for themselves. Either way, as stressful and sometimes heartbreaking as it has been to weather this storm, it has brought me to the realization that Bob Avakian is the leader that I want to follow, that the place he has been working tirelessly to get us to is the place I want to go and where humanity needs to go. As I said in my May 14th speech at a Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights rally in Austin, of the something terrible or something truly emancipating that could be the radical resolution of the deep, existential crisis humanity faces under this system, I want the truly emancipating.

I want to specifically talk about BA’s overall method and approach. As a sociologist (which is a type of social scientist), I find BA’s call for and application of a thorough, rigorous, scientific approach to analyzing both the natural AND (very importantly) the social world to be incredibly inspiring. Simply put, there is no one else who is doing this with the same degree of conviction—of fearlessness, of following the truth wherever it leads you—as BA. In my own work as a researcher, writer and instructor, I consistently try to learn from and emulate BA’s approach: to follow the evidence; to interrogate and self-interrogate; to reject “common wisdom” and not accept established truths without subjecting them to rigorous analysis; to search and fight for what’s true, no matter how uncomfortable (or unpopular) those truths may be; to emphasize epistemological method in how to approach understanding (and transforming) reality; to learn from others, including from those with whom I may strongly disagree on many things; to speak and write in a way that breaks down complex ideas without losing their substance and essence; and to persist, in spite of difficulties, obstacles, criticism, attacks and hardships.

I also want to speak to what I view as one of the “crown jewels” of BA’s work: his radically visionary, awe-inspiring blueprint for a new and liberatory socialist society. As someone who has seriously studied BA’s work, over a number of years, I repeatedly return to the following insight of his: That, in order to uproot all of the deeply seated and interwoven inequalities—between women and men; between different nationalities and races, between those in the imperialist citadels and those of the oppressed nations; between those who can work with their minds and those forced to work, like brute animals, only with their bodies; between those viciously exploited by the workings of the capitalist mode of production and those who benefit from that exploitation—achieving what is sometimes called the abolition of the Four Alls, society under socialism has to be “opened up” on a qualitatively greater plane, which requires a “solid core with a lot of elasticity on the basis of that solid core.” You NEED massive, society-wide debate and wrangling; you NEED to be challenged; you NEED an unleashing of the arts, the sciences, of culture, of women and other formerly oppressed peoples, of youth movements; on a level well beyond anything that has existed in previous socialist societies (to say nothing of the rotten, putrid, dog-eat-dog, “might-makes-right”-ism of capitalist societies such as this one). This isn’t some conciliation to liberal criticisms of socialism: without this—without, as BA puts it, “being willing to go to the brink of being drawn and quartered” but without losing your grip of the whole thing—humanity will never be able to uproot all of the deeply-seated inequalities, divisions, and the ways of thinking that both correspond to and reinforce them. It is a groundbreaking, jaw-dropping, and deeply materialist development of the science of communism that I am continually provoked to revisit and reflect upon.

All of this is completely in contrast to the utterly absurd, dangerously piggish, embarrassingly idiotic, and outright McCarthyite charges of “cult” and “pyramid scheme” that are being hurled at BA and those who follow him. That some of the people who are making these accusations fancy themselves as “socialists” or “radicals” is all the more despicable and stomach churning. These intellectual cowards are (whether consciously or otherwise) doing the very damaging work of the state and political police in actively lying about, and attempting to keep people from engaging with, a world-class revolutionary thinker and leader. And they’re doing it without even the pretense of refuting, engaging, or even presenting BA's arguments, ideas, or body of work!!! It defies belief that this kind of gutter-level, anti-intellectual, substantively vapid garbage is even given a hearing among “progressives” and self-proclaimed “radicals” and “socialists.”  

But don’t take my word for it! Engage BA’s work for yourself. Don’t go by what “everybody knows” or what other puffed-up “movement leaders” and people are telling you (talk about “cultish” and slavish thinking!). Go into it deeply. And then read the work of others who are purporting to offer different analyses of the situation we face, and different solutions to those problems. Compare and contrast the different political and ideological programs, lines, and methods. Have the courage of your convictions. Be serious, and do the goddamn work! Let’s raise the level of our sights and of our discourse. If you disagree, offer up your best arguments. What do you think of his argument that THIS is a rare time in which a revolution in a country like this becomes actually possible, based on the deepening divisions among the rulers of this country, with all that implies and entails? What about his analysis of the new two outmodeds: fascist lunacy and “woke-folk” insanity? His argument about means and ends, and how that relates to the fight for emancipation? His point about epistemology and morality? His critique of democracy? The John Stuart Mill point? His full frontal repudiation of “political truth”? I could go on.... But if you wanna talk about BA, then let’s have a discussion on THAT—­about the struggle to understand and change the world, and BA’s contributions to that process.

John Hedlund, sociology instructor and graduate student

Unlike those who are attacking BA with ridiculous lies and accusations of him being a cult leader, BA has not settled in and made peace with this system. He did what all those who are taking shots at him refuse to do, he’s seriously approached the question of whether a different world beyond this murderous system of capitalism-imperialism, with all its unspeakable horrors is really possible, what has to be done to deal with the whole scope of the problem, not just find some niche within it.

Above all else, and in sharp contrast to everyone else, BA approaches the question of human emancipation and what it will take to get there scientifically, seeking and following the truth wherever it leads, not by “centering marginalized voices” and accepting bullshit as truth because somebody oppressed says it. The masses of oppressed people suffering so unnecessarily under this system deserve more respect than that and no self-respecting person should be willing to be catered to and fawned over solely based on their identity or oppressed condition.

If we want to act in the interests of the oppressed masses of the world, there are real and serious questions that we have to grapple with. What is there a material basis for in this real world, which means not how we think the world should be but what is actually possible? Can we truly get to a society where people’s needs are met without having to go through a global network of sweatshops producing everything, where the environment isn’t being destroyed in the process, where imperialist gangsters aren’t competing for resources and markets and threatening nuclear war? Do we have to just accept the degraded condition of women, the mass incarceration and police murder of Black and Brown people, the persecution of immigrants driven all across the globe by poverty and misery caused by this system? If the current system is maintained and enforced by powerful and vicious repressive forces, under what conditions could it be possible to defeat them and replace this system? What can people do now to help bring about the most favorable conditions where organized revolutionary forces had a real chance to win?

BA has given his entire life helping to answer these questions and more. He is someone with tremendous commitment and heart for the people and it is absolutely sickening to see so many attacking him in such a low level way and his groundbreaking work being so facilely dismissed precisely at this historic juncture where huge splits in the ruling class and in society are widening, where the current trajectory is leading to something truly horrible and will continue to get worse unless a growing number of people learn about and take up the leadership, strategy, science, and vision forged by BA.

Everybody mindlessly parroting or falling for piggish lies and slanders needs to get their head out their ass and raise your sights. Don’t worry about whether you will be accepted within the gutter that claims to be “the left” and ask serious questions and demand serious answers. Criticism is fine and necessary when it comes with real substance instead of personal attacks. What is the analysis and what are the opposing views and aims held by different organizations and people in relation to what has to be done about the overturning of Roe v. Wade or whatever injustice moved you to care about the state of the world? Don’t approach the struggle against injustice and looming fascism by shopping for ideas that you can readily agree with while dismissing those that make you uncomfortable. Confront the stakes involved and follow the truth wherever it leads even if that means breaking with your long-held beliefs.

Why are you attacking Bob Avakian? Someone who is all about justice and making things better for all the people. That’s his goal. That’s how I see Bob Avakian. We can’t allow rumors to be spread. Anyone who spreads lies about people and groups, such as the lies spread about Bob Avakian and Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights—anyone who spreads disinformation and targets those who are demonstrating on behalf of others being persecuted and oppressed, including half of humanity, women—those people spreading these lies are people who really do not care about stopping this persecution and oppression. It could be said they have infiltrated movements for progress and emancipation.

Bob Avakian is a worldwide leader. Jesus made a revolution against the Roman Empire, telling the truth. Today Bob Avakian is revolutionizing against injustice, and is for abortion rights. I’m not comparing Bob Avakian to Jesus Christ, I’m saying you are spreading lies against a communist. I’m a religious person, and I see Jesus as being the first communist. That is why Jesus was crucified. And with Bob Avakian, you are attempting to carry out a modern-day cancellation of a man trying to do good. Bob Avakian talks about revolution. That is why you are spreading the lie about Bob Avakian being a “cult” leader. If anybody leads a “cult” its Donald Trump. It takes millions and millions of people for there to be a revolution—here is a man who is trying to bring forward a revolution and a new society and people are lying about him, defaming him.

The Supreme Court is part of the dictatorship that exists in the U.S.… ruling and dictating over women! I’m 84 years old, and isn’t this attack on abortion rights about ruling over women? For people against abortions, if you are doing it for religious reasons, just stop. If you believe in religion, then let the women decide what she will face when she dies. It’s her choice. A woman has a right to choose. I do believe that this country has dictators: including the Supreme Court. We can’t allow the dictators to mandate over a woma­n’s body. 

Isabel Cardenas
Salvadoran-American Activist Since 1960

When Bob Avakian and the RevCom’s take a principled position and cut through the bullshit, when they show this attack on women and the overturning of Roe v. Wade is a fascist attack, when they show how the Democratic Party is conciliatory with these fascists (refusing to mobilize the people), when in contrast to giving in and capitulating RU4AR mobilizes thousands of young women…  it is at this point these forces go after Bob Avakian because he is telling people what is behind the curtain.  Vicious attacks on Sunsara Taylor… because she TOOK A STAND!  When Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights started, Sunsara Taylor and others from RevCom made it clear:  we have to hit this and we have to hit this hard and mobilize the masses to fight to make sure things don’t get to where they’ve gotten, with Roe overturned and new horrors now happening.  The forces who launched this attack have no answer other than to pretend these attacks are not as serious as they are.  Their program is… bankrupt.  

Which Side Are You On?

But more:  this is counter-revolution.  Accusations about misappropriation of funds is being spread.  This is an attempt to discredit, to delegitimize, to create suspicion.  This can do damage by creating distrust among people who don’t know the real.  Its all old game but it can be effective.  Rather than a solidarity movement, look how the forces spreading lies about BA and RevCom have sunk to the level of Alex Jones!  Let’s be real, the forces spreading this disinformation DESPISE the very idea of revolution—so much so that they envy the shock jock Alex Jones and want to be him... spreading lies, slander and disinformation.  More than shameful... attempting to destroy legitimate protest? This is what fascism does! 

Since when do cults fight to liberate women, Black people, LGBTQ, and wage the fight against capitalism and imperialist war—describe a cult that engages in that?

And because people out there can be lazy and won’t "back check", this bullshit “cult” charge can get over among some.  Just blurt out “CULT” and because people don’t practice science that can also take on wings.  Isn’t the question whether what BA is saying is true, or not, and where will it lead if its promoted and followed.  Of course none of the “leaders” of this bourgeois capitalist set up (or these "self-appointed leaders of the women's movement" who spew groundless accusations) endorse Bob Avakian… they would rather have people turn away.  Now their mouthpieces—even some so-called "progressive journalists"—work to cut people off from Bob Avakian before his ideas spread, before BA’s new ideas have a chance to catch on.  That IS what is happening here.  No way should we allow this.

Why did Malcolm X place the Republican and Democratic Party leadership in the same canine family (foxes and wolves), and why is that relevant today?

This is dangerous.  The forces behind these lies and slanders know this.  They know about COINTELPRO.  They know about Malcolm X.  What happened to Malcolm when he said the Republicans and the Democratic Party - they got the same game going.  We know what happened and that can’t be allowed to happen now.  It’s slander, its libelous, but I say listen and read BA.  Look at the facts.  Look at his principled approach.  Is what BA saying true?  Or not?  That’s the question.  Do you disagree?  If so, say so.  Debate is welcome, I know this from years of experience with the RevComs.   But whether you agree with the need for revolution, or not, these counter-revolutionary attacks must be exposed and denounced; EVERYONE really does need to take a basic stand against this outrage.

D. Ocean
Health Care Practitioner

Actually Bob Avakian has been fighting against this System of Capitalism and Imperialism since the 60s! And has never gave in to the corruption that has lured numerous others away from the goal of fighting for the people and has published a number of books to enlighten the masses on a real way to defeat this System and its puppets! Visit www.revcom.us for a complete encyclopedia of the books by B.A .

A real leader who refuse to do like so many others is very rare, and should be heard, not ignored. There are those who hear him, take what he says, try to rephrase it to make it their own. What they should be doing is the right thing since they already know that B.A. Is the Architect of the New Communism and like I stated earlier a number of great "Real books" on the subject of Revolution, and the emancipation of humanity. When we have a leader amongst us with this kind information we should be taking it up.

I have heard others and this true, and I've heard Bob Avakian, and this is my leader.

Unprincipled attacks, based on lies and slanders, on the organization Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights (RU4AR), as well as the revolutionary leader Bob Avakian, are completely unacceptable. RU4AR is the only national organization in the United States that mobilized thousands of people in the streets in defense of the right to abortion for months before the decision of the Supreme Court that eliminates this constitutional right, while others advised not to fight to stop this decision. Bob Avakian, based on 50 years of work, has developed the New Communism, a more scientific, revolutionary and inspiring guide to making revolution and emancipating humanity in today’s world, and leads a determined fight to make an actual revolution amidst the great turmoil and crises that are ripping U.S. society apart now. To those who repeat or get taken in by the orchestrated campaign of lies and slanders against this important revolutionary leader, we want to ask: Are you against a liberating revolution in the belly of the world’s biggest imperialist oppressor? Do you prefer that this oppressor continue? In the real world, disqualifying this revolutionary leader without even reading and knowing his work can only serve the reactionary interests of U.S. imperialism. We welcome debate and reasoned criticism, which helps to clarify opposing positions. On the other hand, every decent person must categorically reject snarky attacks based on lies, slanders and insults, which does so much damage to the interests of the people. As follows, we reproduce from revcom.us one of several articles about these unprincipled attacks.

I first ran into the leadership and ideas of Bob Avakian (BA) more than 15 years ago straight out of middle school. I was a rebellious and inquisitive young person who was forced awake by the USA’s wars of terror in Iraq and Afghanistan, combined with the madness that I saw around me growing up in East Oakland. The images of American troops in Abu Ghraib prison smiling as they tortured and dehumanized their victims haunt me to this day and they pushed me to dig for deeper solutions than just “me and my people.” With all this anger at the conditions of masses of people worldwide and with a thirst for radical change, BA was like an oasis in the desert of false ideas.

In 2007, 14-year-old me wrote to revcom.us and described what BA meant to me: “I knew what was wrong at that time. I knew what was needed. But then I didn’t know exactly how to get it. Avakian introduced me to the thought of a Revolutionary Communist revolution in the ‘belly of the beast.’ He gave me a platform—structure and theory—behind what I knew the world needed. He formulated a response from me to the system. He opened my eyes to the idea of how we could accomplish change. I had never seen anything like it! I started looking into the complete ideas of the Party—Marxism-Leninism-Maoism—and really saw the solution to end the oppression. I found something that wasn’t only the liberation of a few, but the emancipation of all of humanity.”

BA’s writings and talks challenged me to think critically and reject any type of religiosity. Not only did I break with the belief in gods through works like his book Away With All Gods!, I was also led by BA to confront dogmatic ways of thinking within the communist movement and within myself. And as I grew up and matured, as my knowledge of the world expanded, BA was also hard at work at forging a whole new framework beyond MLM: the new communism. This groundbreaking new method made a scientific inquiry and summation of the achievements and the shortcomings of the previous wave of revolutions in the 20th century. He grounded the communist movement, and the RCP, on a much more solidly scientific foundation, arguing that all truths are good for oppressed people and the struggle to get free. He led the RCP in deepening the strategy to make revolution in this country with a real chance to win. He made huge breakthroughs in the approach to the future socialist society that we’re fighting to bring into being, insisting that dissent and debate be at the core of continuing the revolution even after we have power (codifying all of this in the Draft Constitution). He’s consistently done all of this with the final goal of ending all forms of oppression worldwide as the guidepost for everything. This had a profound effect on my life and the way I learned to see my role in the struggle to emancipate humanity.

So when so-called “progressive” haters (coordinating with major media outlets) throw around accusations of “cult” in order to isolate BA and invite repression against him, not only do I find it intellectually dishonest, not only does it tell me that these fools haven’t read with an open mind a damn thing written by BA, not only do I question the intent of these blowhard “woke” sleep-walkers… I also take it very personal. Excuse my language, but these assholes haven’t done shit compared to BA’s work over the last 50 years. BA has consistently done the work to break down extremely complex concepts about science, understanding the world in order to change it, to broadly popularize in society. He’s paid particular attention to bringing these ideas to the most oppressed. People denied education, caught up in superstition, harassed day in day out by the powers-that-be, and simply trying to survive. I’m a product of this initiative he’s taken. I came to understand communist theory, world history and cultures, biology, physics, and so much more through the work of BA. And I learned all of these things not for some selfish pursuit to be an armchair intellectual, but BA continually challenged me to dedicate my life to making a revolution to liberate all the peoples throughout the world. And he actively leads the RCP and the masses around it in getting organized and prepared to go all-out to make a real revolution.

BA has a broadness of mind and a huge heart. He is a leader that needs to be taken seriously, defended from attacks, and scientifically followed. These petty attacks that are part of a COINTELPRO-type campaign need to STOP.

A message to fellow reproductive rights organizers:

I want to start by admitting that it takes a lot for me to write this, because this is a heavy subject, and so many of us are demoralized and enraged by the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade.

I am disappointed that some folks are basically practicing McCarthyism with the organization that the young lady interviewed by MSNBC regarding her disappointment with the Democrats and I are a part of, Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights.

I am a part of different organizations and movements, but I will focus on Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights in particular.

Rise Up is a coalition of many people with different political views and backgrounds, but are being attacked because one of our initiators is a RevCom (a Revolutionary Communist). So what?

Rise Up is a recently formed organizing and advocacy group, not a direct services organization. People are making false claims about it being a “cult,” and misusing funds. This is just truly sad and disappointing to say the least. Rise Up did outreach to numerous reproductive rights organizations and many of those groups were not receptive. I was personally a part of this effort. However, now, instead of asking and meeting with Rise Up about any of their concerns, these organizers proceeded to spread misinformation at a time when fascists are advancing by the second.

Rise Up has been organizing with Black, white, Brown, indigenous people, Asian, undocumented folks, Latinx people; some who were actually a part of the original green wave in Argentina and Colombia, and with LGBTQIA/gender non-conforming folks.

And as with any recently formed organizing, there is always learning and growing to do of course.

Rise Up’s embracing of the green bandana is not to appropriate a movement, but rather inspiration and guidance from people who were successful in protecting people’s right to bodily autonomy with massive movements in countries with less economic resources than the United States.

Rise Up has been involved in direct actions since February by disrupting, educating, organizing, protesting weeks in front of SCOTUS and other actions, not just electing and supporting Democrats. Is Rise Up provocative style too much for some people? Perhaps.

Again, as we all know, organizing to disrupt a system will certainly bring discomfort and difference of opinions and approaches.

In my experience, Rise Up has never discouraged anyone from supporting and donating to planned parenthood or other abortion funds. One way to look at it is this:

Supporting direct services: If you want to support direct services for people who need access to safe abortions, you can donate to Planned Parenthood, and local abortion clinics.

Supporting mass actions: if you want to support mass organizing and disrupting business as usual in order to now reverse the illegitimate overturning of Roe v. Wade, then you can join and support Rise Up and other community organizing groups.

Remember, no right was won by appealing to the good graces of those in power.

Ideally, wouldn’t it be great for the group of people attacking Rise Up to unite in solidarity to have a greater impact in protecting our communities in need?

There are many of us that don’t agree with some of the practices and electoral decisions of organizations we are a part of, yet, and I can only speak for myself and many folks I organize with—we wouldn’t dare to bring this difference of opinions and disagreements to the general public for the enjoyment of the fascists forces that thrive in witnessing our leftist and progressive movements divide.

However, these allegations are different from mere political disagreements—this is character assassinating and false accusations that have legal and safety repercussions. Many of us at Rise Up, are being harassed by people on the left and right.

I would like to humbly encourage you to please take a step back and evaluate the potential consequences, and safety risks that such allegations and statements have on real people like us with families. We are simply striving for making whatever difference we could make, in a system that was designed to oppress and dehumanize us.

I would be more than happy to connect with and connect anyone interested in engaging in a resolution dialogue with the leadership of Rise Up.

Especially at this time, we must unite to fight for access to safe and legal abortions, and reproductive rights for current and future generations.

Solidarity,

I was shocked and outraged at the vitriolic attacks on Rise Up for Abortion Rights reported on the July 21 installment of the RNL Show. I had seen nothing about these bogus accusations regarding the Revolutionary Communist Party being a cult, of Bob Avakian being the cult’s leader, of RU4AR being a Ponzi scheme, or of any of these fraudulent accusations in the media. 

Nevertheless, I was impressed with how the RNL Show not only defended RU4AR but went on a revolutionary offensive to combat the false accusations. Clearly the science of studying the history of political repression in this country tells us the dangers of [people] attempting to sic the institutions of capitalism upon revolutionary-minded organizations, movements and individuals. Just the acronym COINTELPRO should be warning enough regarding how far the state will go to defend itself from reforms, let alone deep, sustainable, revolutionary development. 

What we are witnessing with these fake accusations is stereotypical red-baiting/bad jacketing at its worst. The so-called "left" is colluding with reactionaries to attack real revolutionaries because Rise Up is doing solid work and is successful at rallying the masses to defend women's rights. 

Dr. King warned us our worst enemies would be "moderates" who are "... more devoted to 'order' than to justice." Or as Rafael Kadaris said of the accusers who are supposedly “left” and “woke,” “You hate revolution more than you hate this system!” And as a real-life Tuskegee Airman once told me, "You only catch flak when you're right on target." Clearly the RU4AR movement is garnering too many followers and making a difference where it counts. 

My only hope is that these phony accusations backfire and help build the movement into a wave that washes away all exploitation of humanity in general and of women specifically in this time of growing fascist actions against so many sectors of society. Bob Avakian and the RCP, RU4AR and the RNL Show are not only hoping, but working to make this happen through correct analysis of the situation behind the sham accusations and by synthesizing powerful solutions in this current phase of the revolutionary struggle for social justice. 

No to red-baiting in the reproductive justice movement

At a time when a united mass movement to defend reproductive justice is needed more than ever, NYC for Abortion Rights and nearly two dozen organizations have chosen to launch an anti-communist attack against one of the most visible activist groups, Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights. Radical Women, a veteran socialist feminist organization with decades of experience in the movement for reproductive justice, denounces this dangerous game of divide and conquer.

The “Statement Against RiseUp4AbortionRights” — signed by NYC for Abortion Rights, United Against Racism & Fascism NYC, Brooklyn People’s March, Shout Your Abortion, The Jane Fund, Chicago Abortion Fund, Chicago DSA Socialist Feminist Working Group and others — deplores Rise Up’s connections to the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP). It labels this well-known fixture on the Left as a personality cult. It accuses both Rise Up and RCP of using pyramid schemes to raise money and exploitative methods to recruit. These unsubstantiated claims are bolstered by other “crimes”: wearing white pants stained with fake blood, holding die-ins, using coat-hanger imagery, and describing forced pregnancy as “female enslavement.” The Statement calls on “repro groups to now unite in discrediting Rise Up publicly” and demand that “the group step back from pro-abortion spaces.” This divisive attack is like a dog-whistle to corporate media, which is crawling all over the issue in coverage from Daily Beast and The Intercept.

Imperfect as Rise Up may be, the reality is the group has been out front nationally in defense of abortion — though not the only group as they have claimed. It has consistently organized protests and used audacious tactics such as unfurling huge banners at sports events to draw media attention to the issue. It has broadened its messaging after being criticized that its single-issue focus on women having abortions was transphobic and limiting. Its green wave imagery is omnipresent and its anti-capitalist message is spot-on. Its boldness has resonated with youth.

Truth be told, it has been largely the Left, including Radical Women, that organized rallies, speak outs, marches, and protests throughout last year to draw attention to the impending Supreme Court debacle. Meanwhile, moderate feminist organizations pushed online fundraising and waited for the Democratic Party to ride to the rescue.

One has to think that some of the venom expressed in the Statement is from groups that did much less than Rise Up and may begrudge its appeal to young people. Others may be driven to undermine the influence of the Left in the movement overall. How condescending it is for them to demand that Rise Up disappear rather than trust young supporters to reach their own conclusions about whether Rise Up’s strategies work in the long run.

Radical Women initiated the National Mobilization for Reproductive Justice a year ago in order to build the kind of coalition effort we think is urgently needed to preserve abortion and achieve full reproductive justice. The Mobilization has attracted feminist groups, grassroots organizations, unions, radicals, and individuals coming together in common cause. Though Rise Up in many instances put itself in competition with actions announced by the Mobilization, we managed to work cooperatively with it in various cities, including in NYC. Rather than demanding political conformity, we believe in respectfully debating differences. With the right wing intensifying its attacks on the most vulnerable, a united front of working-class organizations is essential to pushing them back.

Red-baiting, smearing people or groups for their radical associations, is not acceptable in the movement. It needs to be stopped before it further hurts the very women, people of color, non-binary, trans and poor folks looking to find a channel for their rage as their rights are stripped away. There’s no denying that those of us fighting for abortion rights and reproductive justice will have differences of opinions. It is essential we learn to work together with mutual respect instead of excluding, silencing and witch-hunting one another. Organizations and independent activists can unite around issues while maintaining our differences. The future of reproductive justice and all social movements depends on it.

WITNESS

To: 23 grassroots pro-abortion organizers who denounce Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights.

I am making this statement as an individual. My accounts of the work that the Federation of Feminist Women’s Health Centers (FWHC) have done with the RCP are given solely for the purpose of giving an eyewitness account to give you a fuller picture of the RCP and to directly refute many, if not all, of the charges you made.

Before you seek to defame and cast out Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights on serious (but unproven) charges of being a cult and a pyramid scheme which diverts money from social and racial justice movements, you need to seek out the experiences of non-communist feminists who have worked with the Revolutionary Communist Party, (RCP), such as myself. As an anti-racist activist since 1965, and a feminist pro-abortion activist since 1969, I have first-hand experience with the RCP since the 1970’s which refute these charges. As the Executive Director of the Feminist Women’s Health Centers (FWHC), we have worked with the RCP and with its various ad hoc committees on many occasions and on many social justice issues.

I’ve observed that the RCP often establishes ad hoc grassroots groups to fight on various issues, such as police abuse, abortion rights, and suppression of opponents to the Iranian regime. Non-communists are welcomed to work within or work closely with these groups. The RCP shares its literature and encourages discussion, but there is no pressure to adopt communism or Bob Avakian’s teachings. I have read many of Bob Avakian’s writings, heard him speak and watched his filmed talks. I find them interesting and thoughtful.

The FWHCs, which were founded in the early 70’s, also incorporated issues that were not directly related to the running of our women’s health centers. No one accused us of “glomming on” to these issues, such as home birth, forced sterilization, police abuse, and anti-Muslim violence. And, as regards being a pyramid scheme, RCP-sponsored Refuse and Resist for many years who escorted abortion clients through heavy weekly picket lines at the Eve’s Clinic in El Monte, California and later at the FPA clinic on Westmoreland Avenue. This clearly did not have their bottom line increased.

In 1979, I was a member of the Committee to Send Back the Shah. I, and Rebecca Chalker, also of the FWHC, travelled with the Committee to Iran. The FWHC’s also worked with RCP committees who fought against police abuse, and escorted at abortion clinics. The activities of these ad-hoc groups were mostly funded by donations from the sale of the RCP newspaper. I saw no evidence of large donations from anyone. After our Los Angeles health center closed, I joined Sunsara Taylor in Texas on the Stop Patriarchy tour. We slept on the motel floor and cooked our own meals.

Bob Avakian believes that a communist revolution is needed and that their dedicated efforts will make it possible. RCP members accordingly devote every minute after work hours to make it happen. I believe that females working together can eventually achieve equality, and the resulting egalitarian society will revolutionize the world.

I have personally known many RCP members for years. They definitely do not behave like someone belonging to a cult. They are educated, thinking political activists that are working toward establishing a communist society, and they like Avakian’s approach. They take on various issues because they feel strongly about the rights of the poor and the working class, and the rights of women, and they believe that working on the specific issues builds toward a revolution. They don’t “glom on” to these issues because they are popular or to exploit them.

Stop trying to keep people from associating with Rise Up, because you disagree with tactics you consider “theatrical” that alarm people about abortion. I have always believed that it is counter-productive to use coat-hanger imagery, however, many abortion rights advocates find the specter of “back-alley abortions” to be a strong argument for keeping abortion legal. If we threw out everybody who comes to a demonstration or starts a pro-abortion group on such debatable differences, we’d have a very small movement.

Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights has indisputably attracted a great deal of public attention. Their focus on their outrage may make some people uncomfortable, but remember that bold action can be part of successful protest and even the seizing of power.

You may be respectful of the rights of free speech, however there are many in our country who are not. Many equate “communism” with “un-American” and want to persecute and outlaw communists. Your ill-founded attack has enabled opportunistic so-called reporters to build a firestorm of criticism against the RCP and Rise Up4 Abortion Rights. Could it be that you’re concerned that wealthy philanthropists who financially support grassroots efforts such as yours will be scared to associate with a movement that includes communist groups?

The string of decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court in June, 2022 heralds a trend toward outright fascism in this country. Those decisions reveal the ruling class’ overall plan to maintain Western white supremacy and rampant industrialization by destroying sexual and reproductive rights, by doing away with federal regulation on fossil fuels, by unleashing gun violence and by encouraging police abuse on those who protest, especially poor people and people of color. I urge you to keep up your own valuable work and to be inclusive of all who are working for the common goal of protecting our environment, our sexual and reproductive rights and a more equal society.

Carol Downer

Life-Long Fierce Advocate for Reproductive Rights

As a senior, I’m a contemporary of Bob Avakian. I was in San Francisco at the time of the Black Panther Party. I remember the white people that stood up and supported the Black Panther Party and their programs. Bob Avakian was a young man and he was there. So I know of Bob Avakian for a very long time. I also was the first gay person to be allowed to speak at a left rally, it was at Yale in support of Bobby Seale. Although we were put on last, it was the first time that an openly gay or lesbian person had been visible and spoken from their sexual orientation point of view.

Cointelpro [the FBI’s Counter Intelligence Program which spied on, disrupted, and set up revolutionaries and activists during the 1960s and 70s] wreaked havoc on my life. The FBI’s goal was to seek out who they saw as young people who were potential leaders. This was a story of Fred Hampton in Chicago. He was murdered by the police because he could have been the next major Malcolm X, or Martin Luther King. They went after me because I could speak. Most gay and lesbian people did not because they were invisible. They weren’t protected under the law and their jobs, etc. And they were subjected to police harassment of all different kinds.

I came to Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights because they were out there standing up against the Supreme Court overturning Roe from the beginning, with their green posters and their green bandanas. I still wear them. I saw that it was important to find unity on the issue of the right of women to choose and the right of women to control their body. That includes trans people or people who identify as trans people. I own my body. You own your body. No government and no religion should be putting their hands on it. That’s what brought me to Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights.

These attacks on Rise Up are so similar to the attacks that happened in the 60s and 70s under the Cointelpro program by the FBI. And they’re happening today,

I believe, because of the success of Sunsara Taylor and the Rise Up movement with the revcoms.

We don’t all have to agree about lots of issues, but we come together because we feel unity with abortion rights. And I said it when I spoke at a Rise Up protest in February at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan, if you want to disagree with me about someone or some person or history or whatever, let’s go talk over there in the corner. But today we’re here to fight the Roman Catholic Church and other institutions that control our lives today. (I made a point of saying not all Roman Catholics are bad people.)

You know, I went back and read all the papers of Bob Avakian. I knew the name, I knew some things, but I didn’t know his politics of today. I tell you, if you haven’t done that, and you’re out there making these kinds of accusations, you’re being really stupid and dangerous. It’s a kind of anti-intellectual culture. Read the ideas. Discuss them. That’s dialectics. That’s how we learn to talk and listen to each other.

I want to say thank you, Sunsara Taylor, for all the work you did. Rise Up was there in the beginning, making the link with the activists of the past of the women who had spent 20 or 30 years making sure that Roe stayed in place. I remember what it was like when women could not legally get an abortion. I remember how it impacted on poor people of different races and different sexual orientations. The idea that they’re calling Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights “homophobic” is bizarre to me. I have a whole history of being in the frontlines of fighting for civil rights for lesbian and gay people and bisexuals and trans as we went forward. So I say thank you to everyone who was involved in Rise Up, including Sunsara and other revcoms. Let’s just move forward. Those green signs were everywhere in Washington, DC when Roe was overturned. I was sick at the time, but I watched and I thought, they can’t stop showing them because we, and all of the young people and all of us old people that came together to try to stop the Supreme Court have not given up!

The leadership of Bob Avakian and the Revcoms was key to this fight against police brutality! Because before we built up the October 22 Coalition, I didn’t see anyone else out there fighting against police brutality. No one else was out there on a national scale. O22 was the first out there broadly in this fight. I even went with the October 22nd Coalition to Washington, DC and unfurled a banner on the steps of the US Capitol and I remember Al Sharpton as one of many speaking that day against the 41 bullets shot by police into the body of Amadou Diallo. And it’s still going on, since police shot over sixty bullets into Jayland Walker, murdering him.

I think it is important that we all unite together now—to fight for abortion rights! To attack Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights as disrespectful to Black people and people of color because Rise Up raises the slogan “Forced Motherhood is Female Enslavement” is wrong and goes against the whole history of this country and how people are enslaved in many ways and forms, including that we are now living in the era of the New Jim Crow. As Black people, we know that over generations Black women were being raped and everyone turned a blind eye. So the slogan "Forced Motherhood is Female Enslavement” is very correct and important to raise in our battle for us, as women today, to have the right to abortion.

BMDC Denounces Attack against RU4AR

agreed upon July 3, 2022

The Boston May Day Coalition [BMDC] has been involved in the struggles of working people since 2006 and began to gear up for the fight to defend Roe vs. Wade this past winter. Even last fall, we were appalled to see that the forces supporting the Democratic Party and especially those supporting the Women’s March failed to see the need to mobilize a broad based massive visible effort in defense of abortion rights. During that period, we managed to hook up with Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights which was sounding the alarm and mobilizing dozens, hundreds, and later thousands of youth, locally and nationally, in an effort to wake up the rest of the country to the real danger that lay ahead, while so many others on the left were sleeping at the wheel!!

The broadside attack is currently aimed at women, trans folks, and underage girls. But the Supreme Court has now opened the door to eliminating all rights not envisioned by the “founding fathers” who excluded women and African Americans from the constitution! The overturning of Roe vs. Wade calls for the broadest unity of forces who are willing to fight the systemic reactionary monster which seeks to suppress and deny the legitimate rights of working people and the oppressed.

Unfortunately, after all these months we now see the group, NYC for Abortion Rights, initiating a public campaign against Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights. They claim to want a “strong and united” movement but pursue a policy to divide and weaken the movement. They demand that RiseUp “step back from pro-abortion spaces” as if they are entitled to exclude an organization from the movement! Is this any way to build a social movement? This seems utterly juvenile and something you would expect to see in high school.

NYC for Abortion Rights and others place priority on attacking the presence of the RevComs in Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights. The government and employers have for many decades used red baiting as a means of attempting to destroy social movements defending the rights of working people and the oppressed. Whether it be the fight for women’s suffrage, the rise of the unions, the civil rights movement, the antiwar movement, the abortion rights movement, the environmental movement, etc., the reactionaries have always used this tool to destroy our fights. Martin Luther King Jr. was labeled a “communist” by FBI director, J. Edgar Hoover and subsequently assassinated. Popularizing these tools from this reactionary tool kit poses an existential threat to the movement today just as it did in the past.

NYC for Abortion Rights and others decry the activity of Rise Up’s members “wearing of white pants painted with fake blood, die-ins, and coat-hanger imagery”. They advocate for “safe self-managed abortion” and “medication abortion as a post-Roe tool”. It seems that these people know little about the history of the mass movement which won abortion rights. At the time of Roe vs. Wade, thousands of women had died from self-performed abortions using clothes hangers and from back-alley abortion providers unfit to practice medicine. Yes, we will see the return of clothes hanger and back-alley abortions in the future. Yes, women have died and will die in the future in spite of proclamations from the affluent wing of the abortion rights movement, because those who reject “die ins” are rejecting the reality of women living in poverty.

Indeed, slavery was ruled legal by the U.S. Supreme Court, but the abolitionists continued to fight until it was overthrown. Segregation was legalized in a supreme court ruling until Jim Crow segregation was overthrown by the Civil Rights movement. The battle for the restoration of Roe vs. Wade and Abortion on Demand Without Apology has only begun and NYC for Abortion Rights and others want to give up without firing a political shot. The Democratic Party has been telling us that we can vote our way out of this crisis. The current “moderate majority” government in Washington may have good reason to celebrate this campaign against Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights.

NYC for Abortion Rights and others are upset because “RiseUp frequently likens abortion bans to “female enslavement”. Unfortunately, the role of “housewife” or “barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen” is where the reactionaries want to place women. It is the duty of the movement to point this out even if it makes some people unhappy. Accusations of RiseUp being homophobic or misusing funds are just out and out lies. RiseUp has done much on a shoestring budget. The reactionary Supreme Court which seeks to drive us all down will not have the last word in the battles ahead around abortion rights.

BMDC rejects these divisive attacks and reaffirms the need to build a strong and united movement that develops a movement building culture which seeks to welcome all currents to the organizing table in an effort to organize joint actions decided upon by all the participating organizations. We reject the notion of a movement following a cult of personalities in the form of NYC for Abortion Rights and those who seek to divide us and weaken our ability to fight back against the attacks coming down from the government and reactionaries who want to take all of us back to 19th century style peonage, poverty, and political atomization.

Bob Avakian a “cult” leader.  I’ve heard this kind of talk for a long time, and each time it comes up what do these forces who spread this accusation reveal about themselves:  no engagement… absolutely no serious engagement with anything Bob Avakian has written.  Show me where, in anything Bob Avakian has written, or in his talks, where he says his work shouldn’t scrutinized.  People mustn’t be intellectually lazy and just swallow this talk about “cult.”  There is something called objective truth—and people will be played for fools if they refuse to realize there are people who DO speak the truth (and there will be forces who don’t like that and want to stop it).  And that includes the truth about what the problem and what the solution is—no one else, other than Bob Avakian, shouts “Revolution—Nothing Less”—with real substance, and over many decades.  

People should ask themselves what is “objective reality”?  How to solve the problem of dismantling this capitalist-imperialist system?  That’s different from judging people by what they’re ancestry is or promoting the idea that there are many different versions of reality.  We hear about micro-aggressions and they are real, but what about the macro-aggressions that tie us all together, and a revolutionary leader who speaks to all of that?   These attacks include the accusation Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights and Revcom is a pyramid scheme!  Vicious and unprincipled.  Well, if your “identity politics” is not connected to dismantling this system, you are shuffling chairs on the Titanic, and for some this also now means joining the camp of counter-revolution.  Bob Avakian has pushed a hard scientific line for a long time.  Its right for those who grasp it to stand on it, and for those who’ve never seriously engaged Bob Avakian: find out about what Bob Avakian is saying about objective reality, about the problem and the solution, and the principles that must guide the revolutionary struggle.

Brother B In The Streets
Educator, California

Big movements do not begin in politicians’ offices. They begin with masses of people in the streets. Later on, after there is some kind of disruption happening, the politicians get rid of it and make it into some sort of legislation usually watering it down. That’s how so-called “progress” is made.

I’ve been following the incremental attacks on abortion for the 20 years we’ve been on the air. But as soon as we got into this chapter of it, I looked around for people who would go out into those streets and start to raise hell. I couldn’t find anybody except Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights who was out there immediately and mobilizing excellently. I was very excited about that. I didn’t see any of the other feminist groups and I’m in touch with a lot of them because a lot of them have been on the radio show I produce. They weren’t there. Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights was there. The crowds they were gathering were getting into the news. The different slogans they were using were getting into the news. I just thought that was really excellent, so I was very happy to sign the statement. I was very happy to join.

Now, when I heard about these attacks, it was a very familiar feeling. It was like: Oh no, here we go again. I had seen these kinds of attacks in other movements. I’d seen them in the housing movement. I had seen them in the feminist movement in the early days, when radicals started the feminist movement. Often women associated with the Left, women who were doing consciousness raising or consulting their own experience, were writing a whole new story for women. This is in the mid-60s. These women really spread it far and wide. There were consciousness-raising groups in towns and cities all over the country. Then, what do you think happened? A whole lot of people, usually women who were very involved with the system, began to feel that, “Oh, this movement is really getting someplace. Maybe it’s time that we took it over. Those crazy people who started it, well they were they’re good for starting things, but we can’t let them run they’re going to ruin it. We need to get it under control. We need to blend it perhaps with existing institutions. We need to water it down before it becomes too disruptive of the status quo.” That is a story that has been told often. You can actually go to The Power of History, an essay by Kathie Sarachild of Redstockings, if you want to find out more about that takeover of the feminist movement and how it was kind of siphoned into the Democratic Party. That doesn’t mean the radicals didn’t continue to fight—they are still fighting—but that was a great, great lesson. At that point, the radical feminist movement was attacked in many ways. A lot of the leaders were kicked out of groups they had started.

You see this kind of thing happen over and over again. Radicals tend to have more vision because they have a broader vision. The word radical really means getting to the root of things, looking at the deeper causes of things. Therefore radicals are pretty creative about what they’re doing. On the other hand, people who are doing incremental kind of one-issue-at-a-time and don’t have much vision beyond that, well, they’re good at co-opting what radicals are doing. But they’re not good at sustaining movements that have a real vision. So as soon as I saw these attacks on Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights, I said here we go again. And I ask people who may not have seen this before to keep a sharp look out for it, because it tends to repeat in many movements. When they are really taking off and getting some power and getting some recognition, a whole group of more establishment people come in and start attacking and they often attack very viciously and slanderously. In those ways they’re going to delegitimize those radical movements in people’s eyes. Sometimes it’s a turf war. Sometimes it’s people who are not maybe classical liberals, they can claim to also have socialist roots, but their socialism is a very establishment socialism if you really look at. So I wanted to pass this on to all of you. It’s a very dangerous pattern and it should be fought and it should be exposed. I’m very proud that Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights is standing up to it.

This is not a transphobic movement. You are right for using the word women in much of the sloganeering. The word women must not disappear and it is not in contradiction to supporting all gender non-conforming people. So that’s basically what I want to say. I very much support you. I’ve put out several tweets that have gotten around. I have worked together with Sunsara at WBAI radio. Once again, I thank you. Carry on. We need to be in those streets. We need to have no-business-as-usual while women do not have our rights. We need to have that as an ongoing inspiring motif and we need to stay with it, so thank you all!

The following is a copy of the letter Pam Laskin sent to the editor of the hit-piece published at The Intercept attacking Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights, as well as Bob Avakian, Sunsara and the Revcoms.

Dear Ms. Renner,

As an active member of Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights and admirer of the passion, integrity, hard work and commitment of one of its leaders, Sunsara Taylor, I was appalled to read the recent attack waged against Bob Avakian, the revcoms and—in particular—against an institution, Rise-Up, so committed to securing the health and safety of women’s reproductive freedom.

I have been at many of the rallies organized by this group, and their honest and transparent commitment to this cause is to be revered, not bashed. What struck me at one of the earlier rallies—in March, before the Supreme Court came out with their decision, is how willing Sunsara, a spokeswoman, was willing to join forces with all the other organizations marching to defend this sacred right. Though Rise Up has a particular stance (which you naively and disparagingly attacked), she realized that it was critical to inspire revolution as a catalyst to overturn this decision, while also working with any other group after the same goal.

My guess is that you have never even heard her speak or bothered to interview her, because—if you had—you never would have waged a verbal assault on her goals. A new nation of young people are joining forces with this group because they are inspired by her powerful message.

During these awful political times, when truth is a commodity and our current rhetoric is based on lies, wouldn’t you—as a journalist—want to fully investigate your piece, so you are not perpetuating the negativity, lies and danger of our current world?

Shame on you for not doing otherwise.

Signed,

Pamela L. Laskin
Director, Poetry Outreach
Lecturer, The City College of New York

While the far right is rallying disparate groups from bible-banging Evangelicals to gun-loving white supremacists, the left and progressives prefer to fight amongst themselves. When you attack the Revcoms because you don’t like their tactics or how they organize, you are hastening our country’s authoritarian, fascist takeover. You aren’t fighting the good fight when you spend your time and energy knocking down those on your own side. Stop this holier than thou BS! If you don’t like how the group organizes, you are free to do it your way. It’s all hands on deck people! There’s a place for all of us who are needed if we stand a chance of surviving the fascist surge that is sure to ramp up heading into the 2024 elections, which we can guarantee will not be free or fair. What is needed now is a united people’s front. We need to lock arms and push back. Shame on anyone who distracts from this common mission. You can either be right and stand alone or you can see our common cause and link arms to resist. Next time you want to lash out at Revcoms because they aren’t doing what you would do, maybe you should take that energy and direct it against the real forces of Christian fascism taking our country by storm.

Statement Addressing The Allegations Towards RU4AR On account of the Bay Area Youth who’ve worked with RU4AR since April 2022.

Motivation/Goals?
We work to get as many people in the streets with us as possible. The women & everyone who helped fight in Argentina won their right to abortion & other essential healthcare through protests with masses of people. Simply voting blue & claiming to be pro-choice isn’t enough. SCOTUS has already stated that they’ve got queer marriage and the right to contraceptives on the chopping block next.

Graphic/Violent?
The use of imagery including bloody pants, coat hangers, etc. is based off of the women who were severely injured or died from a lack of safe & legal abortion. This is the reality of what will occur. The argument that now there’s alternatives such as abortion pills or that people can just travel is invalid. Not everyone has the money or situation to fly to another state for an abortion, or to purchase an abortion-inducing pill. It is extremely important to both highlight & recognize the fact that this issue affects black, latinx, low-income, and other further oppressed people disproportionately

Funding/Donations?
When you donate to the Bay Area Rise Up4 Abortion Rights Chapter, the money goes towards the printing & creating of our signs, stickers, banners, and other items used in protest. Many of our banners are made by us (the youth) on our downtime, and sometimes even just hours before protests. In order to create these, we have to invest in fabric, paint, stencils, etc. To make ourselves heard, we need megaphones & batteries for them.

Closing
All in all, we need to stand united in this fight. Now is not the time to start fighting within this “movement”. We might not all have the same ideologies, but we’re all fighting for the rights of women & all people who can give birth.

The attack on RU4AR is utterly malicious, shocking, and scary. One can only wonder what other McCarthyite weapons will be used to target the RCP and other dissident voices on the left… It would seem to me that the funders of the signatories probably set them up to do this, no? The attack is so transparently stupid—but dangerous, nevertheless—and it seems obvious that the real target attack is on the RCP…
 
Americans are taught who the enemy is—and it’s always those who refuse to be taken in by the US narrative, including China, Russia, Syria, Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, and Nicaragua; independent journalists; and organizations like the RCP. Now, maybe more than ever, communism—and socialism—has once again been turned into a threat. The plot sickens.

The following is a copy of the letter Peter Switzer sent to the The Intercept in response to their membership email (at times he quotes their letter). Switzer addresses the hit-piece they published attacking Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights, as well as Bob Avakian, Sunsara and the Revcoms.

July 22, 2022

Hey Intercept,

You’re certainly not helping democracy “survive” in any way… that’s a fact, something you folks seem to be in extremely short supply of over there.

You’ll have to lose the gaslighting, mudslinging, libelous non-“journalist” Robert Mackey before I would ever think about reading your slanderous rag ever again.

Is the Intercept actually going to allow slimy McCarthy type hit pieces like the one McMackey scratched out with zero reporting done and just lazy BS hearsay from others who really don’t know much, if anything at all, about Rise Up 4 Abortion, or the RevComs, or Bob Avakian? How much do they know about CoIntelPro or the McCarthy hearings?

– “Swooping”?

– Really?

What a joke, so old, so tired, such complete BS. RU4AR was organizing and agitating in the streets with NO “cameras” back in January 2022, straight through into DC well before the “cameras” came out there, and are still organizing actions and protests in the streets today. Where the hell were you? Where was McMackey?

RU4AR organized most of the actions in the streets across the country, that’s why they were/are there at most of them, with the microphone. Imagine that fact…

Rise Up was even ignorantly criticized for adopting green as the color of resistance for abortion rights when they began. There is a reason Rise Up chose green that most others didn’t have a clue about. Low and behold RU were criticized for “co-opting” that too when folks were made aware, a color, “co-opting” a color! Any allegations of “co-opting” are such a freaking joke, it would be painfully hilarious if it wasn’t so freaking sad and down right counter-revolutionary.

The same people who didn’t know where or why the green was chosen, are now all wearing green BECAUSE of Rise Up’s foresight and understanding, back in December/January to follow the women of Argentina and Colombia, where abortion rights were won in the streets, by the people. Even your pals in congress are now wearing green, (pic below) seen while Chu spoke on the steps of the house. The Dems weren’t wearing green before Rise Up adopted and popularized it here. Clearly RiseUp influenced many other groups in this way in the US, and elsewhere, as was its intention.

Mackey is ridiculous. Mackey’s putrid fact free rambling so called “journalism” belongs in the toilet, at best.

From The Intercept fundraising email:

– “Journalism will play a key role in the fight to restore sanity to the Supreme Court.”

The Intercept’s “journalism” certainly won’t.

– “It’s up to us to explicate the impact of these decisions, illuminate the forces that unleashed them, and demand action from those with the power to check the court’s excesses and repair the damage.”

Did it even occur to McMackey or the Intercept what RU is actually calling for??

Do you even know now, almost eight months into it?

If anyone over there truly believed only half of the content in this email you’ve sent along with your quest for “lavish” cash, then you would cease to publish what is the worst representation of “journalism” the internet has to offer.

I won’t be reading or accepting anymore stories or emails from your lower than swill you somehow label “dogged investigative journalism” site any time in the future. Unsubscribing today.

Get real, or GTFO.

Rise Up!!

Peter Switzer

When I checked this morning, the Intercept still had the original story [attacking Rise Up and the Revcoms] featured prominently (middle of the page, one of the top stories in the “politics” section) without a printed rebuttal. The article by Sunsara was very well constructed. Detailing the complete lack of journalistic integrity, both by Mackey and by editorial staff, is important. Illustrating the trumpian methods of “argument” he employed to extremely dangerous ends, here directed by “progressive” journalists against some of the only organized forces that mobilized protest and resistance.

Continuing to press for the Intercept to publish the rebuttal should be seen by MANY as a just demand given the embarrassing lack of journalistic standards in Mackey’s article, and if they don’t do so soon, finding ways to make this a point of controversy among people who would generally read the Intercept could serve an important role, especially linking their article to the other unprincipled attacks published around the same time and with remarkably similar content, as the “Behind the week of internet attacks…” piece [by the revcoms published at Revcom.us] does. And doing this with the aim of exposing the putrid values and impoverished political vision and program that these attacks stem from and serve, and showing by way of contrast what a difference it makes to seek to understand the nature of this attack on abortion rights and the objectives of those pushing it, a scientific analysis that shows the way to fighting these outrages today and does not turn away from what is needed to take on the source of these regenerating horrors at their root!

I thought the section [in Sunsara’s rebuttal] “Canceling Bob Avakian to Erase Revolution” was especially powerful. It opens by tackling head on why these accusations of “cultishness” are not only shameful and have nothing to do with honest reporting or discourse, but have the effect of placing “out of bounds” any engagement with BA’s work on these crucial questions of the basic nature of this system, whether there is a path beyond all of this system’s horrors through revolution, what makes that possible and what characterizes the radically different society that would take its place—all questions of critical importance, that any reader of the Intercept who honestly confronts the magnitude of the crises and crimes of this system should want—or be challenged—to engage. I also think it’s helpful to enumerate the ways that the charge of “cult” plays with people, the labels that get affixed (“Everyone knows that cults are creepy and unthinking and dangerous. Everyone knows they are predatory.”). It places what people think out in the open, allows it to be taken on directly, and allows the hollow accusations and the whole innuendo-laden to be torn apart.

The first thing I want to say is I felt totally insulted—and that’s what I felt about this. I felt totally insulted for somebody to say I’ve been working with a cult all these years. Because working with the RCP and following the leadership of BA who I think is the leading thinker in the world right now, not that I agree with everything he says but I will say he is the leading thinker in the world forging forward the strategy of liberation for all mankind. Working with the RCP and following the leadership of BA has done nothing but test my thinking, made me stretch my thinking—my imagination—to grapple, to understand different complex situations that we get in the world today. My mind has been stretched, has been tested to the limit in trying to understand complex situations like thinking how revolution is possible.

If this was a cult, a cult is based on certain unchanging religious principles. There’s no religiosity in this movement. BA and the RCP, particular people like Sunsara Taylor & Andy Zee raised alarms around the coming onslaught, the emergence of fascism, in the U.S. before anybody else saw it. To be able to see the oncoming of fascism before anybody else did and then start preparing people for it—I commend the RCP and Bob Avakian for doing that. And to ask people to get into the streets to stop the reversal of Roe v Wade, abortion rights was, I think, kind of remarkable. And I think BA and the RCP are to be commended for that.

I think what people need to do despite this onslaught by a lot of the so-called left, then the so-called “Woke” movement that’s full of identity politics. People, like BA says—people need to be scientific. People need to get up into these questions about today, what’s going on. Particularly regarding the strategy to reverse the Supreme Court Decision against abortion rights. BA and the RCP have been instrumental in pointing the way how to deal with this problem—the streets.

A cult wouldn’t have done all that. A cult is the philosophy of religion. RCP, BA, is the philosophy of growth. Of analyzing life, and the objective situation as they are developing. So in the end I say like BA—are we headed for a horrible end or is humanity headed toward a much better future?

If you look at him and judge him by the white skin you need to look a little bit deeper because he’s lots more than white skin. You have to look at the circumstances that gave birth to him and what he stands for for all those years and continues to stand for.

Bob Avakian is a very great leader and he will do his absolute best whether you get behind him or not. He’s committed to the movement. He’s committed to making sure we have a better world to live in and committed to getting rid of oppression.

You know, when you talk about getting rid of oppression you live in a world that is kind of like a glass cylinder. They are going to throw bricks when the person is pulling the shade, or exposing their deeds. And Bob Avakian has done that like none other. He has exposed their deeds and they are not in the least appreciative of it.

So naturally they will try to throw their darts and attack him at any level and at any point they can. They are trying to pick, prick and find a weakness in his mantle but he has none. He knows that the only way to beat this system is to dismantle this system and break this system and get free of this system. And to create a new system that is above the oppression of all people. He wants a world where all people can exist free of oppression and free of crushing one another to get on top as the capitalist-imperialist does.

None has exposed this movement like Bob Avakian. I learned SO MUCH under my short tenure and studying under the revolution about the way this system operates and the things that they do that are maniacal. Forthright maniacal and deviant in their nature to undermine a populace that has already been downtrodden.

We know the tricks of COINTELPRO—divide and conquer. We know the history. We know how they killed Fred Hampton, Mark Clark, the various Black Panther Party leaders. And not only how they killed the Black Panther Party leaders—how they moved on all of the political organizations of that time to dismantle, disrupt and destroy those movements. So we have history of this.

And Bob Avakian has not been silent about it. He’s not held his tongue. He’s not kowtowed and kissed ass like many other leaders do to appease the government. You’ve got to respect a man like that. You’ve GOT to respect a man like that.

I myself was leery at the first onsight of coming in to the movement. But as I began to read the material and become immersed in the material and do my studies with the RCP I found out that the man was just unmasking a very wicked, wicked capitalist-imperialist bourgeoisie nation that downtrods and grinds the bones of the less fortunate. How do you build yourself on the crushed bodies of others? And this nation has done that like none other nation.

This nations, if ever brought to bear for the crimes—it’s crimes it’s done against the Native American people, it’s crimes it’s done against the African-American people alone! If they were brought to bear for just THOSE crimes they’d have enough to pay. But yet and still Bob Avakian exposes that there is a continued process—they haven’t given up, they haven’t given way to the way they do things, to the ways they operate.

So it’s important to immerse yourself in the knowledge of the movement of Bob Avakian and to support this leader. And to protect him at all costs. Protect him at all costs. Because they have killed enough of our leaders. So we have to form a strong web around him and protect him. Thank you.

My name is Hannibal Salim Ali and I’m a supporter of Bob Avakian.